Fantasy and Reason: Children's Literature in the Eighteenth Century

First published in 1984, Fantasy and Reason (now with a new foreword by Judith Summerfield) retraces the major philosophical, moral and social factors bearing on children’s development in the eighteenth century, leading up to the poetic expression in book V of Wordsworth’s Prelude of a sustained analysis of children’s growth, their mental health, and the life of their imaginations.

Wordsworth’s poem is the starting point for this book, which goes back to examine major reputations in the fiel...