Description: This diverse collection addresses not only the roles assigned to children in the context of nineteenth-century consumer culture, but also children themselves as agents in the formation of that culture. Topics include child performers on the Victorian stage; imperialism in adventure fiction; gender, sexuality and consumerism; and the commercialization of orphans. The essays demonstrate the rising investment children and adults made in commodities as sources of identity and human worth.
Review Quotes: 'From its scene-setting introduction to its closing studies of dead and dying children, this collection is a compelling read that offers new ways of thinking about such nineteenth-century phenomena and institutions as the family, the children's book, the theater, toys, imperialism, and sensation fiction. In the process, it offers a salutary reminder that neither consumer culture not the festishization and commodification of youth is a new phenomenon, while highlighting continuities between adults and children, past and present, and the nexus of desire surrounding constructions of childhood then and now.' Kim Reynolds, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK