In this post, Alice Sage takes us on an intriguing, sumptuously illustrated journey through the outbreaks of fairy fever in Britain after the First World War. Discover how and why fairies created their own pandemic through the astonishing spread of books, art, photographs, and artefacts in this period. Unless otherwise noted, …
SELCIE is delighted to announce that a new publication – The Land of Story-Books: Scottish Children’s Literature in the Long Nineteenth Century, edited by Sarah Dunnigan and Shu-Fang Lai (Association for Scottish Literary Studies, 2019) – will be launched on Friday 14th June at 5pm at Edinburgh University, kindly hosted …
In this blog post, I will explore how many factors – both technological and ideological – have affected changes in the development of the illustration of children’s books. Within contemporary children’s literature criticism, it is argued that ‘children’s books’ can be for readers of any age (Beckett 2008). This age …
In this blogpost, Rosaleen Nolan shines a light into the darker corners of one of the most beloved nurseries in children’s literature… “Wendy has not yet appeared, but she has been trying to come ever since that loyal nurse cast the humorous shadow of woman upon the scene and …
I became involved in SELCIE when member of the group, Sarah Dunnigan, kindly invited me to have a look in the museum of childhood archives held at the city chambers, where I met the rest of the team and joined the journey! In the basement, there is a room full …
At times it is clear in our archives that a group of books was donated by the same person or institution, and often they have a paper trail of some sort – a letter included in the book or a note made by the librarian who received them as a …
Picture This What’s the relationship between text and image in illustrated children’s books? In this blog, Niamh reflects on this question, thrown up by having to choose between a multitude of beautiful different editions of the same text for our ‘Growing Up With Books’ exhibition. * As you know, the …
A visit to the Museum of Childhood’s archive one afternoon uncovered a forgotten Scottish Victorian children’s writer. Here, Sarah introduces the fairytale, folkloric worlds of Mona Paton… * In 1871, Charles Dodgson, or Lewis Carroll, paid a visit to the island of Arran to see the Edinburgh painter, Joseph Noel Paton, …
A new exhibition has opened at Orkney Museum in Kirkwall which makes for a rich new addition to the history of Scottish children’s literature – and to the role of children themselves as writers and readers. In the 1860s, three young Orcadian girls – Maria and Clara, and their cousin, Isabella – created …
Eighteen months on from our first descent into the Museum of Childhood’s basement vault and every box still tells a story. In one we opened lay two beautifully illustrated volumes from the early twentieth century. Several threads bound them together — pooled from the same body of legends and stories …
