Children's Literature Collections: Approaches to Research [Hardcover]

This book provides scholars, both national and international, with a basis for advanced research in childrens literature in collections. Examining books for children published across five centuries, gathered from the collections in Dublin, this unique volume advances causes in collecting, librarianship, education, and childrens literature studies more generally. It facilitates processes of discovery and recovery that present various pathways for researchers with diverse interests in childrens books to engage with collections. From book histories, through bookselling, information on collectors, and histories of education to close text analyses, it is evident that there are various approaches to researching collections. In this volume, three dominant approaches emerge: history and canonicity, author and text, ideals and institutions. Through its focus on varied materials, from fiction to textbooks, this volume illuminates how cities can articulate a vision of children's literature through particular collections and institutional practices. 

Contents

 

Acknowledgements

Introduction

P?draic Whyte and Keith OSullivan

1.    Instruction with Delight: Evidence of Children as Readers in Eighteenth-Century Ireland from the Collections of Dublin City Library and Archive

2.    Irish Childrens Books 16961810: Importation, Exportation and the Beginnings of Irish Childrens Literature

       Anne Markey

3.    The Great Famine in Irish History Tlã�