The mind of the child : child development in literature, science, and medicine, 1840-1900

What is the difference between a lie and a fantasy, when the subject is a child? Moving between literary and scientific texts, Sally Shuttleworth explores a range of fascinating issues that emerge when the inner world of the child becomes, for the first time, the explicit focus of literary and medical attention. Starting in the 1840s, which saw the publication of explorations of child development by Bronte and Dickens, as well as some of the first psychiatric studies of childhood, this groundbreaking book progresses through post-Darwinian considerations of the child's relations to the animal kingdom, to chart the rise of the Child Study Movement of the 1890s. Based on in-depth interdisciplinary research, The Mind of the Child offers detailed readings of novels by Dickens, Meredith, James, Hardy and others, as well as the first overview of the early histories of child psychology and psychiatry. Initial chapters cover issues such as fears and night terrors, imaginary lands, and the precocious child, while later ones look at ideas of child sexuality and adolescence and the relationship between child and monkey. Experiments on babies, the first baby shows, and domestic monkey keeping also feature. Many of our current concerns with reference to childhood are shown to have their parallels in the Victorian age: from the pressures of school examinations, or the problems of adolescence, through to the disturbing issue of child suicide. Childhood, from this period, took on new importance as holding the key to the adult mind. Contents......Page 10 List of Illustrations......Page 12 List of Abbreviations......Page 13 Introduction......Page 14 PART I. EARLY CHILD PSYCHIATRY AND THE LITERARY IMAGINATION......Page 26 1. The Emergence of Child Psychiatry......Page 28 2. Fears, Phantasms, and Night Terrors......Page 55 3. Lies and Imagination......Page 73 4. Imaginary Lands......Page 88 5. Passion......Page 101 PART II. SYSTEMATIC EDUCATION......Page 118 6. The Forcing Apparatus: Dombey and Son......Page 120 7. Progress, Pressure, and Precocity......Page 144 8. Science, System, and the Sexual Body: The Ordeal of Richard Feverel......Page 164 PART III. POST-DARWINIAN CHILDHOOD: SEXUALITY AND ANIMALITY......Page 192 9. Childhood in Post-Darwinian Psychiatry......Page 194 10. Childhood, Sexuality, and the Novel......Page 220 11. The Science of Child Development......Page 234 12. Experiments on Babies......Page 246 13. Monkeys and Children......Page 258 PART IV. CHILDHOOD AT THE FIN DE SIECLE......Page 278 14. Child Study in the 1890s......Page 280 15. Autobiography and the Science of Child Study......Page 303 16. Unnatural History: Father and Son......Page 317 17. Childhood as Performance: What Maisie Knew......Page 338 18. Jude the Obscure and Child Suicide......Page 348 Conclusion......Page 366 Notes......Page 377 Bibliography......Page 462 B......Page 496 C......Page 498 D......Page 499 E......Page 500 G......Page 501 H......Page 502 J......Page 503 M......Page 504 P......Page 506 R......Page 507 S......Page 508 T......Page 509 Z......Page 510 In the 1840s novelists such as Brontë and Dickens began to explore the inner world of the child. Simultaneously the first psychiatric studies of childhood were appearing. Moving between literature and science, this book explores issues such as childhood fears, imaginary lands, sexuality, and the relation of the child to animal life