As a children’s librarian and long-standing enthusiast for classic children’s lit, I’ve always wondered something.
When you look at the body of classic children’s fantasy (especially the kind that comes from the so-called “golden age” of children’s lit–the mid-1800s to the early twentieth century or thereabouts), nearly all of it originates in the U.K.
I mean, just look at the roster:
Alice In Wonderland
Peter Pan
The Wind In The Willows
Winnie The Pooh
The Narnia Series
The Hobbit (which was intended as a children’s book at first–it grew into something greater with LOTR)
Harry Potter (whether it will stand the test of time remains to be seen–I hope it will–but it has become rather respected as literature in and of itself)
All of which had British authors. The only classic children’s fantasy that I can think of with an American author is the Oz series!
So why do you guys think that is? Something in the water in England? Or does the muse for children’s fantasy just like to hang out there? (And if I visit England, where could I possibly run into her? Maybe at the Eagle and Child Tavern?)
I’m glad you recognized the Oz series. When I’ve had this discussion with other people, it’s usually “there’s NO classic American children’s fantasy!”, and I have to bring up Baum (who wrote other fantasies besides the Oz books, by the way. One of them was the basis for a Rankin-Bass cartoon)
There is American fantasy literature for children from a while back, but most of it hasn’t survived well. I don’t know why not. The Tom Swift and Tom Swift Jy series (written by a variety of authors under the “Victor Appleton” and Victor Appletin III" house names) and the Frank Reade library were popular, but virtually unread today – time has passed them by. Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote a book for younfer readers – The Tarzan Twins, but I think only Burroughs fans read it.
Don’t forget “National Velvet” by Enid Bagnold. I was a horse-crazy kid and was rather flummoxed at first try over Brit slang and many words for items of clothing, food, etc. but OMG it was so good once I got into it! American equivalants might be “The Black Stallion” series, or Marguerite Henry “King of the Wind”.
We have “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott (sort of a Jane Austin-lite).
As to why British predominates, I dunno. Why them, not Irish, Italian, Spanish, Japanese? When my daughter was little, I remember even a lot of the ordinary non-classic childrens books from the library were by British authors. I’d be interested to know why, other than that they were really good at it.
Welllll…National Velvet isn’t fantasy, nor is Little Women. That’s why I differentiated. (Otherwise, I’d have included Tom Sawyer in the list of classic American children’s fiction. That, like The Hobbit, was written as a children’s novel, but led to a sequel that most definitely was NOT for children.)
the top map in the link of comparative world literacy rates in 1900 shows Anglophonia in the lead.
The origin of this was Protestantism, where ordinary people were encouraged to read their bibles instead of them being intererpreted for them by a priesthood with ties to the foreign pope.
Another factor was the wealth of Great Britain due to its command of world trade. This created a surplus of wealth that could be splurged on peripherals like publishing books for children.
This last is the most important. The Germans were literate Protestants too, the culture was rich in folklore, and had the Grimms as folklorists to collect it. But lacked the disposable income of the British.
My guess is that the publishing climate of the UK valued children’s literature and children’s authors far higher than the U.S. did. The Oz books were issued as standard children’s books, one of many series that Baum wrote under various pseudonyms:
Only dedicated collectors know the other series even exist. But there were hundreds of similar series of the day, including the Tom Swift books Cal mentioned - themselves an imitation of the Young Tom Edison series - and they were considered low-level junk. The OZ books happened to strike a chord that even Baum never could duplicate.
And fantasy itself was split in the same way. Fantasy was considered a proper part of literature in the UK while all the U.S. imitators of Wells were relegated to pulp magazines. With very few exceptions, fantasy was untouchable by mainstream American publishers until after WWII. Tolkien could be part of the Inklings but no similar group existed in America. The equivalents were groups of science fiction fans, mostly teenagers rather than Oxford dons.
I feel that the way publishing works is vastly underrated in histories of literature. Genre writers are far more aware of the enormous gulf between the worlds, but they don’t get listened to.
Here’s the Wikipedia list of American children’s fantasy:
I would say that all of the following American writers are significant writers of children’s (or maybe you might call it young adults’) fantasy:
Madeleine L’Engle
Edward Eager
Lloyd Alexander
Ursula K. Le Guin
L. Frank Baum
Norton Juster
Neil Gaiman (born in the U.K. but has now spent most of his working life in the U.S.)
E. B. White
Diane Duane
Susan Cooper (born in the U.K. but has now spent most of her working life in the U.S.)
John Bellairs
Daniel Pinkwater
Robin McKinley
Carol Kendall
Peter Beagle
James Thurber
Also popular, but I can’t speak to their talents:
Rick Riordan
Lynne Reid Banks
Catherynne M. Valente
You could probably come up with many more if you know the field better than I do. Yes, I suspect that per capita, Brits have written more great children’s fantasy than Americans, but the stuff written by Americans is still pretty good. I don’t know why the Brits have done better stuff per capita. I don’t know if there is any sort of real explanation. Maybe it’s just random chance.
Good list, Wendell Wagner, although most or all of those names post-date the time frame emphasized in the OP. And it leaves me wondering how much classic children’s fantasy has been written in other countries besides the UK and the USA, that I maybe don’t know about because it’s not in English. (Pinocchio; the Moomintrolls; the Neverending Story; the Little Prince…)
The answer to your question, Hermione, may be as simple and mundane as that certain art forms and genres tend to flourish in certain places and eras, just because a tradition for them happens to develop there.
Or maybe there’s something in the classical British education those authors had (study of the (Greek & Latin) classics or mythology, perhaps?) that predisposed them to favor fantasy.
Or maybe it’s because England is an old country with a long tradition of fairy tales and Arthurian legends and other centuries-old culture.
I’d say it’s critical to note that A Wrinkle in Time was published in 1962 by the very upscale literary house Farrar, Straus & Giroux. It was at least 40 more years before they published a work of adult science fiction. Same with most of the others on that list. Baum aside, every work they wrote was post-WWII with the exception of a couple of early Thurbers, and one of those was an anti-war fable in 1939 and the other was written during the war. The American publishing industry changed greatly after WWII and fantasy became acceptable, usually starting with children’s lit and then moving on to adult fantasy.
I was trying to think of mainstream American fantasists of the pre-war period and came up with James Branch Cabell’s Jurgen and Thorne Smith’s Topper. Both turn out to have been published by Robert M. McBride, a publisher I’ve never heard of.
But every work on the OP’s list of pre-Potter titles came from a major British publisher. I don’t think you can ignore how huge the differences in acceptability were in the two cultures.
At least the following books and short stories by Twain are fantasy or science fiction, although none are meant for children:
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
“Eve’s Diary”
“Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven” The Mysterious Stranger Letters from the Earth
“The Curious Republic of Gondour”
“The Loves of Alonzo Fitz Clarence and Rosannah Etholton”
“The Great Dark”
