Serialization, Commercialization and the Children’s Classics

Amy Webster is Senior Lecturer in Education Studies, Bishop Grosseteste University, UK. She is part of the University’s Literature and Literacies research unit and co-edits the university’s newsletter on children’s literature. Her articles and essays have been published in The SAGE Encyclopaedia of Children and Childhood Studies and FEAST and has presented many papers across the UK and Europe. She completed an MPhil and PhD at the Centre for Research in Children’s Literature at the University of Cambridge.

List of Figures
List of Tables
Introduction

Chapter 1: Probing the problem of ‘the classic’

Complexities and critiques of the classic
The classic in children’s literature
Classics and canons
Prizing and reading practices
Serialising children’s classics: A room of not so familiar friends
Studying British series of children’s classics at a distance and up close
Compiling the data set
Precursors to the classic series

Chapter 2: Presence

Analysing the data set
Core classics and copyright
Non-recurring titles
The move towards homogenisation
Variation in series of modern classics
Trends in authorship

Chapter 3: Pruning

Adapting children’s classics
Analysing abridgement: Counting words and reading contraction
A case study of a children’s classic
Ladybird: Series of classics for younger readers
Longman: The children’s classics as a reading scheme

Chapter 4: Product

Repackaging children’s classics
The publisher’s peritext
A Ladybird story
Puffin’s ‘complete and unabridged’ classics
Walker’s Illustrated Classics: ‘The classics have never looked so good’

Conclusion: The commercial dimension of the children’s classics

References

Appendix
Appendix A: Accessing the dataset online
Appendix B: Series of classics and modern classics listed chronologically by start publishing date
Appendix C: Books in series listed numerically by book ID
Appendix D: Authors in series listed numerically by author ID
Appendix E: Series that books appear in listed numerically by Book ID

Index