Child's world: a social history of english childhood
- "Middlesex, Eng." Penguin Books 1984
- 236p.
During the 19th century more than a third of the English population was fourteen or under Put more graphically; there was no escaping from children. Their noise and play were a constant feature of life, they cluttered up streets and houses and haunted the historical documentation of the time. At one end of the spectrum they underpinned the Victorian ideal of the family, at the other they provided cheap, pliable labour for the industrial revolution. There were enormous differences between children of different classes, ages, sexes and localities, but even under the harshest conditions children managed to inherit, create and pass on their own stories, songs, street-games and mythologies. Their experiences shaped society as we know it and this Pelican is a unique and fascinating study of a hitherto neglected area of our history.