VICTORIAN HORIZONS - THE RECEPTION OF CHILDRENS BOOKS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA, 1880-1900

This article examines the critical reception of children's books in En gland and America, 1880-1900. The purpose of the study is to determine the nature and extent of interest in children's books in the formativ e period of the ''golden age of children's literature.'' Which periodi cals covered children's books, and how did their cultural discourse, a s revealed through reviewing and commentary, shape the norms and assum ptions by which children's books were created and evaluated? Seventy-f ive literary periodicals were studied for their coverage of children's books in this period. The literary periodicals are drawn from Poole's Index, Nineteenth-Century Readers' Guide, and Wellesley Index. Using reception theory, a branch of reader-response criticism, I construct t he contemporary context in which children's books were received-expres sed as ''horizons of expectations.'' A spectrum of cultural discourse included the following horizons: the treatment of children's books as a commodity; the elevation of children's books as works of art; an emp hasis on illustration and pictorial effects in literature; a lack of r igid demarcation between adult and children's literature; a growing ge nder division; a diversification of the didactic tradition; a continui ng debate on fantasy and realism; the romantic idealization of childho od and its literature; attention to the historiography of children's l iterature; and anxiety about the changing character of children's read ing. While these concerns informed the larger history of children's li terature, they converged in late Victorian England and America to crea te a unique climate for the reception of children's books as a body of literature, a field of study, and a form of expressive culture.