伊丽莎白·韦斯特《创造20世纪儿童文学的女性》(书评)

IF 0.1 4区 文学 0 LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS
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West concentrates particularly on the 'forgotten' (p. 1) dedication of a group of female writers, illustrators, editors, and librarians, or, in her collective term, the 'bookwomen', active in Britain and the United States between the 1930s and the 1960s. Their commitment to ensuring the quality of children's books in terms of both content and material form not only aided the production of classics still warmly received today, but also laid the foundation for some of the most crucial criteria for children's publishing, and 'invented', as the title of the book suggests, children's literature in the twentieth century. West resurrects the contributions of these bookwomen in an ambitious total of nine chapters. In the Introduction she explains her research focus and presents the principal preoccupations in children's literature and inter-war socio-cultural frameworks that form the basis for her subsequent chapters. In Chapter 1 the author gives a comprehensive overview of the representative British and American bookwomen and their interconnections. Chapters 2–7 each focus on a different aspect of children's literature or on a specific genre, featuring one or several bookwomen relevant to each topic. Chapter 2 concerns children's editors, highlighting the work of Eleanor Graham, the prominent founding editor of Penguin's Puffin [End Page 593] books. Chapter 3 uses Eileen Colwell's librarianship at Hendon Public Library to discuss the evolving role of children's librarians. Chapter 4 concentrates on how female children's authors managed to shine in the inter-war period by examining the successful career of Ursula Moray Williams, who managed to combine her writing talent with sound commercial sense so as to maintain long-lasting popularity. Chapter 5 centres on materiality and how bookwomen collaborated to negotiate content, design, wartime shortages, and commercial considerations of cost and profit. Chapter 6 examines picture books, concentrating on Kathleen Hale and her enduring Orlando series. Chapter 7 explores radical children's literature and records Amabel Williams-Ellis's efforts in embedding unconventional ideas in her works for the young. In the concluding chapter, West once again lauds the undervalued endeavour of the bookwomen. West's enquiry brings to light a largely neglected legacy. The bookwomen's accomplishments, including but not limited to seeking out space within a male- dominated industry that prioritized adult literature, exploiting innovative channels to promote children's literature, and, most notably, striving in a unified' (p. 245) way to define and create good books for children, paved the way for future bookwomen and prepared children's literature for its resurgence after i960, leading eventually to its overall visibility as a distinct literary branch. West also uncovers the extraordinary versatility or 'holistic approach' (p. 14) of these professionals, as many would engage in a book's entire lifespan from 'first inspiration to design, print, and production' (p. 209). That most of them had to juggle work and family and cope with wartime difficulties makes their achievements even more formidable. The book's voluminous scope encompasses the most important disciplines and key themes and concerns of children's literature and exhibits a mixture of research methods such as archival research, cultural studies, and textual analysis. Another major strength of this monograph is West's reference to a varied corpus of evidence, ranging from bookwomen's speeches, remarks, correspondence, writings, memoirs, biographies, interviews, to publishing, sales, and book-prize statistics. On the one hand, these findings, gathered meticulously by the author from varied sources including the British Publishing Archive and a number of university archival collections, corroborate West...","PeriodicalId":45399,"journal":{"name":"MODERN LANGUAGE REVIEW","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1000,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"The Women Who Invented Twentieth-Century Children's Literature by Elizabeth West (review)\",\"authors\":\"\",\"doi\":\"10.1353/mlr.2023.a907845\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"Reviewed by: The Women Who Invented Twentieth-Century Children's Literature by Elizabeth West Yuanyuan Zhang and Haifeng Hui The Women Who Invented Twentieth-Century Children's Literature. By Elizabeth West. London: Routledge. 2022. vii+ 260 pp. £120 (ebk £36.99). ISBN 978–1–032308–27–2 (ebk 978–1–003306–87–0). For children's literature, the decades from the 1930s to the 1960s are traditionally dismissed as the mundane 'Brass Age' (p. 4), overshadowed by the Golden Ages preceding and succeeding this period. In this book, however, Elizabeth West conducts an insightful reinvestigation of this period and testifies to its significant impact on modern children's literature. West concentrates particularly on the 'forgotten' (p. 1) dedication of a group of female writers, illustrators, editors, and librarians, or, in her collective term, the 'bookwomen', active in Britain and the United States between the 1930s and the 1960s. Their commitment to ensuring the quality of children's books in terms of both content and material form not only aided the production of classics still warmly received today, but also laid the foundation for some of the most crucial criteria for children's publishing, and 'invented', as the title of the book suggests, children's literature in the twentieth century. West resurrects the contributions of these bookwomen in an ambitious total of nine chapters. In the Introduction she explains her research focus and presents the principal preoccupations in children's literature and inter-war socio-cultural frameworks that form the basis for her subsequent chapters. In Chapter 1 the author gives a comprehensive overview of the representative British and American bookwomen and their interconnections. Chapters 2–7 each focus on a different aspect of children's literature or on a specific genre, featuring one or several bookwomen relevant to each topic. Chapter 2 concerns children's editors, highlighting the work of Eleanor Graham, the prominent founding editor of Penguin's Puffin [End Page 593] books. Chapter 3 uses Eileen Colwell's librarianship at Hendon Public Library to discuss the evolving role of children's librarians. Chapter 4 concentrates on how female children's authors managed to shine in the inter-war period by examining the successful career of Ursula Moray Williams, who managed to combine her writing talent with sound commercial sense so as to maintain long-lasting popularity. Chapter 5 centres on materiality and how bookwomen collaborated to negotiate content, design, wartime shortages, and commercial considerations of cost and profit. Chapter 6 examines picture books, concentrating on Kathleen Hale and her enduring Orlando series. Chapter 7 explores radical children's literature and records Amabel Williams-Ellis's efforts in embedding unconventional ideas in her works for the young. In the concluding chapter, West once again lauds the undervalued endeavour of the bookwomen. West's enquiry brings to light a largely neglected legacy. 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引用次数: 0

摘要

书评:伊丽莎白·韦斯特的《发明二十世纪儿童文学的妇女》张媛媛和惠海峰的《发明二十世纪儿童文学的妇女》。伊丽莎白·韦斯特著。伦敦:劳特利奇出版社,2022。Vii + 260页,售价120英镑(电子书36.99英镑)。ISBN 978-1-032308-27-2 (ebk 978-1-003306-87-0)。对于儿童文学来说,从20世纪30年代到60年代这几十年传统上被认为是平凡的“黄铜时代”(第4页),被这一时期之前和之后的黄金时代所掩盖。然而,在这本书中,伊丽莎白·韦斯特对这一时期进行了深刻的重新调查,并证明了它对现代儿童文学的重大影响。韦斯特特别关注于“被遗忘的”(第1页)一群女性作家、插画家、编辑和图书管理员的奉献,或者,用她的统称,“女书迷”,活跃于20世纪30年代至60年代的英国和美国。他们致力于确保儿童书籍在内容和材料形式方面的质量,这不仅有助于制作至今仍受到热烈欢迎的经典作品,而且为儿童出版的一些最重要的标准奠定了基础,并“发明”了20世纪的儿童文学,正如书名所示。韦斯特雄心勃勃地用总共九章的篇幅,重现了这些女学者的贡献。在引言中,她解释了她的研究重点,并介绍了儿童文学和战争期间社会文化框架的主要关注点,这些构成了她后续章节的基础。在第一章中,作者对具有代表性的英美女书香及其相互联系进行了全面的概述。第2-7章分别关注儿童文学的一个不同方面或一个特定的流派,以一个或几个与每个主题相关的女作家为特色。第二章关注儿童编辑,重点介绍了埃莉诺·格雷厄姆(Eleanor Graham)的作品,她是企鹅海雀(Puffin)系列图书的杰出创始编辑。第三章以Eileen Colwell在Hendon公共图书馆的图书馆事业为例,探讨儿童图书馆员角色的演变。第四章通过对厄休拉·默里·威廉姆斯成功的职业生涯的考察,探讨了女性儿童作家是如何在两次世界大战之间的时期大出风头的。厄休拉·默里·威廉姆斯成功地将自己的写作才能与良好的商业意识结合起来,从而保持了长久的知名度。第五章的中心是物质,以及女书商如何合作协商内容、设计、战时短缺以及成本和利润的商业考虑。第六章考察绘本,重点介绍凯瑟琳·黑尔和她经久不衰的《奥兰多》系列。第七章探讨了激进的儿童文学,记录了Amabel Williams-Ellis在她为年轻人创作的作品中嵌入非传统思想的努力。在书的最后一章,韦斯特再次赞扬了女书迷们被低估的努力。韦斯特的调查揭示了一个很大程度上被忽视的遗产。女书虫的成就,包括但不限于在男性主导的、优先考虑成人文学的行业中寻找空间,利用创新渠道推广儿童文学,最值得注意的是,以统一的方式努力定义和创作儿童好书,为未来的女书虫铺平了道路,并为1960年后儿童文学的复苏做好了准备,最终使其作为一个独特的文学分支获得了全面的关注。韦斯特还揭示了这些专业人士非凡的多功能性或“整体方法”(第14页),因为许多人会参与一本书的整个生命周期,从“最初的灵感到设计、印刷和生产”(第209页)。他们中的大多数人必须兼顾工作和家庭,应付战时的困难,这使他们的成就更加令人敬畏。这本书的卷范围包括最重要的学科和关键主题和儿童文学的关注,并展示了混合的研究方法,如档案研究,文化研究和文本分析。这本专著的另一个主要优势是韦斯特引用了各种各样的证据,从女书商的演讲、评论、通信、著作、回忆录、传记、采访,到出版、销售和图书奖统计数据。一方面,这些发现是作者从包括英国出版档案馆和一些大学档案收藏在内的各种来源精心收集的,证实了西方……
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
The Women Who Invented Twentieth-Century Children's Literature by Elizabeth West (review)
Reviewed by: The Women Who Invented Twentieth-Century Children's Literature by Elizabeth West Yuanyuan Zhang and Haifeng Hui The Women Who Invented Twentieth-Century Children's Literature. By Elizabeth West. London: Routledge. 2022. vii+ 260 pp. £120 (ebk £36.99). ISBN 978–1–032308–27–2 (ebk 978–1–003306–87–0). For children's literature, the decades from the 1930s to the 1960s are traditionally dismissed as the mundane 'Brass Age' (p. 4), overshadowed by the Golden Ages preceding and succeeding this period. In this book, however, Elizabeth West conducts an insightful reinvestigation of this period and testifies to its significant impact on modern children's literature. West concentrates particularly on the 'forgotten' (p. 1) dedication of a group of female writers, illustrators, editors, and librarians, or, in her collective term, the 'bookwomen', active in Britain and the United States between the 1930s and the 1960s. Their commitment to ensuring the quality of children's books in terms of both content and material form not only aided the production of classics still warmly received today, but also laid the foundation for some of the most crucial criteria for children's publishing, and 'invented', as the title of the book suggests, children's literature in the twentieth century. West resurrects the contributions of these bookwomen in an ambitious total of nine chapters. In the Introduction she explains her research focus and presents the principal preoccupations in children's literature and inter-war socio-cultural frameworks that form the basis for her subsequent chapters. In Chapter 1 the author gives a comprehensive overview of the representative British and American bookwomen and their interconnections. Chapters 2–7 each focus on a different aspect of children's literature or on a specific genre, featuring one or several bookwomen relevant to each topic. Chapter 2 concerns children's editors, highlighting the work of Eleanor Graham, the prominent founding editor of Penguin's Puffin [End Page 593] books. Chapter 3 uses Eileen Colwell's librarianship at Hendon Public Library to discuss the evolving role of children's librarians. Chapter 4 concentrates on how female children's authors managed to shine in the inter-war period by examining the successful career of Ursula Moray Williams, who managed to combine her writing talent with sound commercial sense so as to maintain long-lasting popularity. Chapter 5 centres on materiality and how bookwomen collaborated to negotiate content, design, wartime shortages, and commercial considerations of cost and profit. Chapter 6 examines picture books, concentrating on Kathleen Hale and her enduring Orlando series. Chapter 7 explores radical children's literature and records Amabel Williams-Ellis's efforts in embedding unconventional ideas in her works for the young. In the concluding chapter, West once again lauds the undervalued endeavour of the bookwomen. West's enquiry brings to light a largely neglected legacy. The bookwomen's accomplishments, including but not limited to seeking out space within a male- dominated industry that prioritized adult literature, exploiting innovative channels to promote children's literature, and, most notably, striving in a unified' (p. 245) way to define and create good books for children, paved the way for future bookwomen and prepared children's literature for its resurgence after i960, leading eventually to its overall visibility as a distinct literary branch. West also uncovers the extraordinary versatility or 'holistic approach' (p. 14) of these professionals, as many would engage in a book's entire lifespan from 'first inspiration to design, print, and production' (p. 209). That most of them had to juggle work and family and cope with wartime difficulties makes their achievements even more formidable. The book's voluminous scope encompasses the most important disciplines and key themes and concerns of children's literature and exhibits a mixture of research methods such as archival research, cultural studies, and textual analysis. Another major strength of this monograph is West's reference to a varied corpus of evidence, ranging from bookwomen's speeches, remarks, correspondence, writings, memoirs, biographies, interviews, to publishing, sales, and book-prize statistics. On the one hand, these findings, gathered meticulously by the author from varied sources including the British Publishing Archive and a number of university archival collections, corroborate West...
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来源期刊
CiteScore
0.10
自引率
0.00%
发文量
157
期刊介绍: With an unbroken publication record since 1905, its 1248 pages are divided between articles, predominantly on medieval and modern literature, in the languages of continental Europe, together with English (including the United States and the Commonwealth), Francophone Africa and Canada, and Latin America. In addition, MLR reviews over five hundred books each year The MLR Supplement The Modern Language Review was founded in 1905 and has included well over 3,000 articles and some 20,000 book reviews. This supplement to Volume 100 is published by the Modern Humanities Research Association in celebration of the centenary of its flagship journal.
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