Children''s Literature and the Rise of ''Mind Cure'' - Positive Thinking and Pseudo-Science At the Fin De Siecle

Positive thinking is good for you. Analysing nineteenth-century literature through the pervading lens of New Thought, which foreshadowed concepts of twentieth-century popular psychology, this volume uncovers unnoticed aspects of canonical works and classic children's literature to reveal a new area of academic inquiry for scholars and students.

List of contents

Introduction; 1. The Inner Child in Frances Hodgson Burnett's Little Lord Fauntleroy and Sara Crewe; 2. Fauntleroy's Ghost: New Thought in Henry James's The Turn of the Screw; 3. Rewriting the Rest Cure in Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden; 4. Sunshine and Shadow: New Thought in Anne of Green Gables; 5. Millennial Motherhood in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland Trilogy; Epilogue. The Cinematic Afterlife of New Thought Fiction.

About the author

Anne Stiles is Associate Professor of English and Coordinator of Medical Humanities at Saint Louis University, Missouri. She is the author of Popular Fiction and Brain Science in the Late Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, 2011) and the editor of Neurology and Literature, 1866-1920 (2007). She also co-edited two volumes in part of the Progress in Brain Research series (2013). Her work has been supported by long-term grants from the Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (2016-2017); the Huntington Library (2009-2010); and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2006-2007).

Summary

Positive thinking is good for you. Analysing nineteenth-century literature through the pervading lens of New Thought, which foreshadowed concepts of twentieth-century popular psychology, this volume uncovers unnoticed aspects of canonical works and classic children's literature to reveal a new area of academic inquiry for scholars and students.

Product details

• Authors: Anne Stiles, Anne (Saint Louis University Stiles, STILES ANNE
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.01.2021
• EAN: 9781108830942
• ISBN: 978-1-108-83094-2
• No. of pages: 217
• Series: Cambridge Studies in Nineteent; Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > English linguistics / literary studies; LITERARY CRITICISM / Semiotics & Theory, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 19th Century, Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900, Literature: history & criticism, Literary studies: general, Literary theory, Literature: history and criticism