Fashioning Childhood in the Eighteenth Century - 9781138263086

Taylor & Francis

This innovative collection of essays re-examines conventional ideas of the history of childhood, exploring the establishment of the category of age as a marker of social distinction alongside race, class and gender. Ranging from scientific, legal and educational discourses on the child, to the child as artist and consumer, the essays shed light on well-known novels and on less-familiar texts such as periodicals, medical writings and trial reports. > This innovative collection of essays re-examines conventional ideas of the history of childhood, exploring the child's increasing prominence in eighteenth-century discourse and the establishment of the category of age as a marker of social distinction alongside race, class and gender. While scholars often approach childhood within the context of a single nation, this collection takes a comparative approach, examining the child in British, German and French contexts and demonstrating the mutual influences between the Continent and Greaty