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Mystery in Children's Literature

From the Rational to the Supernatural

  • Book
  • © 2001

Overview

Editors:
  1. Adrienne E. Gavin

    1. Canterbury Christ Church University College, Canterbury, Kent, UK

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  2. Christopher Routledge
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About this book

The first book to assess critically mystery in children's literature, this collection charts a development from religious mystery through rationally solved detective fictions to insoluble supernatural and horror mysteries. Written by internationally recognised scholars in the field, these thirteen original essays offer challenging and innovative readings of both classic and popular mysteries for children. This volume will be essential and stimulating reading for anyone with an interest in children's literature or in mystery fiction.

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Table of contents (14 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xiii
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  2. Mystery in Children’s Literature from the Rational to the Supernatural: an Introduction

    • Adrienne E. Gavin, Christopher Routledge
    Pages 1-13

  3. ‘so great and beautiful that I cannot write them’: Religious Mystery and Children’s Literature

    • Pat Pinsent
    Pages 14-31

  4. Nancy’s Ancestors: the Mystery of Imaginative Female Power in The Secret Garden and A Little Princess

    • Mary Jeanette Moran
    Pages 32-45

  5. The Juvenile Detective and Social Class: Mark Twain, Scouting for Girls, and the Nancy Drew Mysteries

    • Troy Boone
    Pages 46-63

  6. Children’s Detective Fiction and the ‘Perfect Crime’ of Adulthood

    • Christopher Routledge
    Pages 64-81

  7. Digging up the Family Plot: Secrets, Mystery, and the Blytonesque

    • David Rudd
    Pages 82-99

  8. Plotting the Past: the Detective as Historian in the Novels of Philippa Pearce

    • Valerie Krips
    Pages 100-114

  9. The Secret Development of a Girl Writer: Louise Fitzhugh’s Harriet the Spy

    • Robin Amelia Morris
    Pages 115-130

  10. Apparition and Apprehension: Supernatural Mystery and Emergent Womanhood in Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and Novels by Margaret Mahy

    • Adrienne E. Gavin
    Pages 131-148

  11. Possessed by the Beast: Subjectivity and Agency in Pictures in the Dark and Foxspell

    • Clare Bradford
    Pages 149-164

  12. ‘There Are Worse Things Than Ghosts’: Reworking Horror Chronotopes in Australian Children’s Fiction

    • John Stephens, Robyn McCallum
    Pages 165-183

  13. The Mysteries of Postmodern Epistemology: Stratemeyer, Stine, and Contemporary Mystery for Children

    • Karen Coats
    Pages 184-201

  14. Harry Potter and the Mystery of Ordinary Life

    • Christopher Routledge
    Pages 202-209

  15. Enigma’s Variation: the Puzzling Mysteries of Avi, Ellen Raskin, Diana Wynne Jones, and Chris Van Allsburg

    • Adrienne E. Gavin
    Pages 210-218

  16. Back Matter

    Pages 219-228
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Reviews

'I enjoyed reading these essays...a worthwhile book to add to any well-rounded university library...' - Jill P. May, Children's Literature Association Quarterly

Editors and Affiliations

  • Canterbury Christ Church University College, Canterbury, Kent, UK

    Adrienne E. Gavin

About the editors

TROY BOONE Assistant Professor of English, University of Pittsburgh CLARE BRADFORD Associate Professor, School of Literary and Communication Studies, Deaking University, Melbourne KAREN COATS Assistant Professor of English, Illinois State University VALERIE KRIPS Lecturer in English, University of Pittsburgh ROBYN MCCALLUM Lecturer in English, Macquarie University, Sydney MARY JEANETTE MORAN Doctoral Studies, University of Iowa, USA ROBIN AMELIA MORRIS Poet and Scholar PAT PINSENT Senior Research Fellow, English Department, Roehampton Institute, London DAVID RUDD Senior Lecturer, Bolton Institute, UK JOHN STEPHENS Associate Professor of English, Macquarie University, Sydney

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