# Why is most classic children's fantasy British? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 25, 2013, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-most-classic-childrens-fantasy-british/656713 "2013-04-25T21:50:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-most-classic-childrens-fantasy-british/656713/21 "2013-04-26T02:37:58Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > _A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court_ is fantasy, though not specifically for children. Actually, Twain said that he DID write that book for boys. He wrote quite a bit of fantastic literature, although a lot of it was pretty dark, or at least cynical (like _the Musterious Stranger_). But _Extracts from Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven_ is hilarious. Especially as rendered in plasticine by Will Vinton in _The Adventures of Mark Twain_: https://www.youtube.com/embed/VkYze54wCDI?feature=oembed&wmode=opaque ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-most-classic-childrens-fantasy-british/656713/22 "2013-04-26T03:31:25Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Especially as rendered in plasticine by Will Vinton in _The Adventures of Mark Twain_: > > [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkYze54wCDI](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkYze54wCDI) Heh. As best I can tell, _Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven_ contains the largest spacecraft in sci-fi literature. I don’t have the numbers handy, but the book contains a precise description of the cargo capacity of a particular ship. So as not to collapse into a black hole, the ship must be below a certain density, and with these constraints I came up with something at least a few light-days across (it might actually be a lot more… I’ll have to check). ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-most-classic-childrens-fantasy-british/656713/23 "2013-04-26T04:57:48Z")
> [@Hermione](#): > > 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.) :o woops, sorry. ---
**Author:** ![BrokenBriton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@BrokenBriton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrokenBriton)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-most-classic-childrens-fantasy-british/656713/24 "2013-04-26T07:22:27Z")
> [@Hermione](#): > > 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) No love for Roald Dahl? ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-most-classic-childrens-fantasy-british/656713/25 "2013-04-26T07:57:16Z")
> [@BrokenBriton](#): > > No love for Roald Dahl? ☹ Or Eric Linklater? ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-most-classic-childrens-fantasy-british/656713/26 "2013-04-26T09:08:30Z")
Wasn’t the Victorian era the time of Romanticism, when there was a resurgence of myth and legend, and a re-purposing of fairytales and nursery rhymes? Maybe the popularity of fantasy tales for children was connected with that. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Librarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_librarian/32/402_2.png) [@The\_Librarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Librarian)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-most-classic-childrens-fantasy-british/656713/27 "2013-04-26T11:06:18Z")
You do know what ‘confirmation bias’ means? ---
**Author:** ![si\_blakely](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@si\_blakely](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/si_blakely)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-most-classic-childrens-fantasy-british/656713/28 "2013-04-26T12:26:19Z")
Does _Jules Verne_ count as classic fantasy? Fantastic, certainly, and his novels straddle the lines between adventure, science fiction and fantasy. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-most-classic-childrens-fantasy-british/656713/29 "2013-04-26T12:58:43Z")
> [@The\_Librarian](#): > > You do know what ‘confirmation bias’ means? How do you think that’s relevant here? ---
**Author:** ![esmeralda2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ccd318/32.png) [@esmeralda2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/esmeralda2)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-most-classic-childrens-fantasy-british/656713/30 "2013-04-26T14:17:49Z")
> [@Hermione](#): > > 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?) When I was a child I read The Bobbsey Twins, Pippi Longstocking, all of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, Nancy Drew mysteries, Rebecca of Sunny Brook Farm, Pollyanna, and Little Woman, as well as many books not so well known. I did read Grimm’s Fairy Tales, but I never read any of the books on your list, not one. I grew up to get a master’s degree in English and have a career teaching college level literature. I don’t know why you specify ‘fantasy’ literature. Do you think that fantasy literature is more creative? I don’t. I have never read any fantasy literature, not ever as far as I can remember. The students that I work with, young adults, who are readers of fantasy are not by any means more insightful or creative about life and certainly not about literature. I’m not knocking the books you mention, but I also wouldn’t put them in a category that makes them or their authors somehow more creative or inventive than other authors. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-most-classic-childrens-fantasy-british/656713/31 "2013-04-26T14:39:19Z")
The OP specified fantasy literature because that’s what she’s interested in. No implication was made that fantasy is more creative, or in any other way superior. The fact that there is plenty of American non-fantasy children’s literature hardly refutes the point: In fact, it strengthens it. ---
**Author:** ![esmeralda2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ccd318/32.png) [@esmeralda2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/esmeralda2)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-most-classic-childrens-fantasy-british/656713/32 "2013-04-26T15:06:55Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The OP specified fantasy literature because that’s what she’s interested in. No implication was made that fantasy is more creative, or in any other way superior. The fact that there is plenty of American non-fantasy children’s literature hardly refutes the point: In fact, it strengthens it. > [@](#): > > \*\*The OP specified fantasy literature because that’s what she’s interested in. \*\* I don’t see anything in her posts that says the reason she specifies fantasy literature is simply because it’s what she is interested in. That’s why I asked. She brings it up and focuses on the lack of fantasy literature in American children’s literature, which suggests she feels there is something ‘lacking.’ I think it is probably a cultural thing. I read and adore a great deal of British literature, but it is quite different in many ways from American literature. For example, the British don’t have the Southern Literature genre, nor the Southern Gothic Literature genre. They don’t have the ‘hard boiled detective’ genre in their literature. These things are culture differences, nothing else. It’s not realistic to think that simply because we speak the same language our cultures should be essentially the same. There are many differences. And btw, the poster who said Little Women is a ‘lite’ type of Austen. No. There is nothing similar to Austen’s work in Little Women. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-most-classic-childrens-fantasy-british/656713/33 "2013-04-26T15:35:59Z")
> [@esmeralda2](#): > > I don’t see anything in her posts that says the reason she specifies fantasy literature is simply because it’s what she is interested in. That’s why I asked. She brings it up and focuses on the lack of fantasy literature in American children’s literature, which suggests she feels there is something ‘lacking.’ > > I think it is probably a cultural thing. I read and adore a great deal of British literature, but it is quite different in many ways from American literature. For example, the British don’t have the Southern Literature genre, nor the Southern Gothic Literature genre. They don’t have the ‘hard boiled detective’ genre in their literature. These things are culture differences, nothing else. It’s not realistic to think that simply because we speak the same language our cultures should be essentially the same. There are many differences. And btw, the poster who said Little Women is a ‘lite’ type of Austen. No. There is nothing similar to Austen’s work in Little Women. It’s built in. She mentioned it, therefore she must be interested in discussing that. She specifically discounted other literature, so she is not interested in discussing that. As Chronos says, bringing it up just confirms her point. And if it were cultural, then Americans wouldn’t like children’s fantasy, when we really, really do. Can you say the same thing about those other genres you mention? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-most-classic-childrens-fantasy-british/656713/34 "2013-04-26T15:42:03Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > 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) Baum even acknowledged that fantasy was dominated by English writers in his time and he was trying to add an American voice to the genre. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-most-classic-childrens-fantasy-british/656713/35 "2013-04-26T15:47:33Z")
Hugh Lofting (Doctor Doolittle) and Mary Norton (The Borrowers) are two more classic British fantasy authors. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-most-classic-childrens-fantasy-british/656713/36 "2013-04-26T15:54:22Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > 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 Jr 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 younger readers – The Tarzan Twins, but I think only Burroughs fans read it. There’s also Howard Pyle, who was a popular children’s author but is mostly forgotten today. Maybe this indicates the answer. Maybe British children were reading fantasy about elves and wizards while American children were reading historical adventures about knights and pirates. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-most-classic-childrens-fantasy-british/656713/37 "2013-04-26T16:01:46Z")
> [@esmeralda2](#): > > I think it is probably a cultural thing. I read and adore a great deal of British literature, but it is quite different in many ways from American literature. For example, the British don’t have the Southern Literature genre, nor the Southern Gothic Literature genre. They don’t have the ‘hard boiled detective’ genre in their literature. These things are culture differences, nothing else. It’s not realistic to think that simply because we speak the same language our cultures should be essentially the same. There are many differences. And btw, the poster who said Little Women is a ‘lite’ type of Austen. No. There is nothing similar to Austen’s work in Little Women. Certainly there are cultural differences between the two, but you’re listing just the differences and not the similarities. There were many similarities, which make the differences all the more pronounced. Mysteries are an obvious one. They can be found in both countries even before Sherlock Holmes made them into a sensation. The Holmes stories were all reprinted in America (some even appearing there first), and any number of authors wrote characters that would be proclaimed “the American Holmes” in dozens or hundreds of short stories. When the mystery genre started selling regularly in books after WWI, both Brits and Americans wrote similar styles of books. The borrowing went both ways. Of course there were hard-boiled British writers. Take a look at the cover for [No Orchids for Miss Blandish](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Orchids_for_Miss_Blandish_%28novel%29). “the toughest novel you ever read” And it might be, although Chase wrote many more that tried to top it. True, there was no British tradition of private eyes - Orchids is set in Florida - but their equivalent was thriller and spy novels, with Sapper’s Bulldog Drummond character as hard-boiled as any, and a huge influence on later pulp writing. H. G. Wells and George England started writing science fiction about the same time as Doyle created Holmes, and their books were reprinted - or pirated - instantly in America, also creating a legion of imitators, probably with William Wallace Cook being the top name in the first decade of the 20th century. Both the pulps and the better-quality magazines printed what we could call science fiction, or fantasy, or science fantasy, or weird tales regularly, sometimes in almost every issue, both from American authors and reprints of British authors. That usually went only one way - the Brits thought they had the superior writers and American pulpsters didn’t get reprinted as much over there. But that makes it all the more surprising that Americans, who copied everything British, didn’t copy children’s fantasy to any great extent. It is odd, and it’s an anomaly that’s not easy to explain. ---
**Author:** ![Hermione](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/cdc98d/32.png) [@Hermione](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermione)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-most-classic-childrens-fantasy-british/656713/38 "2013-04-26T16:02:52Z")
> [@BrokenBriton](#): > > No love for Roald Dahl? ☹ Sorry, forgot about him. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Hermione](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/cdc98d/32.png) [@Hermione](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermione)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-most-classic-childrens-fantasy-british/656713/39 "2013-04-26T16:05:04Z")
Didn’t mean to start any arguments. 😃 I guess I was thinking mainly (with a few exceptions) of the “golden age” of children’s lit that I mentioned. There’s a really good nonfiction book (out of print, I believe, but you might be able to find it in a library) called Secret Gardens by Humphrey Carpenter. ---
**Author:** ![Hermione](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/cdc98d/32.png) [@Hermione](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermione)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-most-classic-childrens-fantasy-british/656713/40 "2013-04-26T16:32:19Z")
Sorry, didn’t mean to submit so early and the edit window passed. Anyway, in this book, Carpenter discusses this so-called “golden age” in children’s lit and examines these works in the light of their authors’ lives and beliefs. He also traces the theme of the “Arcadia” (the magical paradise, often pastoral) in these books. Not all the books he covers are fantasy, and not all are British, but he focuses especially on Wonderland, Peter Pan, Willows, and Pooh. (Also George MacDonald’s novels like The Princess and the Goblin and Charles Kingsley’s The Water Babies.) I guess that when I read this (quite a long time ago–I really must get myself a used copy off Amazon) it struck me that so many of these classics were English and I got to thinking of why that was. I’d recommend this book if you can get your hands on it. My favorite theory he puts forth is that Charles Dodgson and Lewis Carroll were a kind of Jekyll and Hyde to one another–not just a pen name, but a whole other persona. As an example, Carpenter cites the fact that many of the verses that show up in Alice in Wonderland are (often gruesome) parodies of religious instructional verses. That, and the nihilistic tone of the world the Alice books, seem like such a contrast to the pious and shy Charles Dodgson that it almost seems as if Dodgson was giving a darker, more dangerous side free rein…a side he didn’t allow out at all after a certain point. It’s interesting, also, that Carpenter only touches very briefly on The Hobbit…considering he also wrote a biography of Tolkien! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-most-classic-childrens-fantasy-british/656713.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-most-classic-childrens-fantasy-british/656713.md?page=3)