Dickens was known for his incredible imagination and fiery social protest. This book shows how Dickens used the fairy tale to express his political and social views, and helped establish it as an important literary genre for the Victorian Public. Drawing on exciting new criticism by Jack Zipes, Maria Tartar and others, and covering all of Dickens's works, Social Dreaming sheds valuable socio-historical light on the fairy tale as a social tool. This book also includes a lengthy examination of Dickens's periodicals - the most popular middle-class publications in Victorian times - a largely neglected area of Dickens's criticism. The work will be of interest to Dickens scholars, students of Victorian Literature, and children's literature specialists.

Dickens was known for his incredible imagination and fiery social protest. In Social Dreaming, Elaine Ostry examines how these two qualities are linked through Dickens's use of the fairy tale, a genre that infuses his work. To many Victorians, the fairy tale was not childish: it promoted the imagination and fancy in a materialistic, utilitarian world. It was a way of criticizing society so that everyone could understand. Like Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm, Dickens used the fairy tale to promote his ideology. In this first book length study of Dickens's use of the fairy tale as a social tool, Elaine Ostry applies exciting new criticism by Jack Zipes and Maria Tatar, among others, that examines the fairy tale in a socio-historical light to Dickens's major works but also his periodicals-the most popular middle-class publications in Victorian times.

First Published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This volume examines utopian writing for children from the eighteenth century to the present day, defining and exploring this new genre in the field of children's literature. The original essays discuss thematic conventions and present case studies of individual works. It includes interviews with creative writers and the first bibliography of utopian fiction for children.