Reprint of the original, first published in 1841.

"The Crofton Boys" from Harriet Martineau. English social theorist and Whig writer (1802-1876).

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Reading Victorian Schoolrooms examines the numerous schoolroom scenes in nineteenth-century novels during the fraught era of the Victorian education debates. As Gargano argues, the fiction of mainstream and children’s writers such as Dickens, Brontë, and Carroll reflected widespread Victorian anxieties about the rapid institutionalization of education and the shrinking realm of domestic instruction. As schools increasingly mapped out a schema of time schedules, standardized grades or forms, separate disciplines, and hierarchical architectural spaces, childhood development also came to be seen as regularized and standardized according to clear developmental categories. Yet, Dickens, Brontë, and others did not simply critique or satirize the standardization of school experience. Instead, most portrayed the schoolroom as an unstable site, incorporating both institutional and domestic space. Drawing on the bildungsroman’s traditional celebration of an individualized, experiential education, numerous novels of school life strove to present the novel itself as a form of domestic education, in contrast to the rigors of institutional instruction. By positioning the novel as a form of domestic education currently under attack, these novelists sought to affirm its value as a form of protest within an increasingly institutionalized society. The figure of the child as an emblem of beleaguered innocence thus became central to the Victorian fictive project.

The stories we read as children are the ones that stay with us the longest, and from the nineteenth century until the 1950s stories about schools held a particular fascination. Many will remember the goings-on at such earnest establishments as Tom Brown's Rugby, St Dominic's, Greyfriars, the Chalet School, Malory Towers and Linbury Court. In the second part of the twentieth century, with more liberal social attitudes and the advent of secondary education for all, these moral tales lost their appeal and the school story very nearly died out. More recently, however, a new generation of compromised schoolboy and schoolgirl heroes - Pennington, Tyke Tiler, Harry Potter and Millie Roads - have given it a new and challenging relevance. Focusing mainly on novels written for young people, From Morality to Mayhem charts the fall and rise of the school story, from the grim accounts of Victorian times to the magic and mayhem of our own age. In doing so it considers how fictional schools not only reflect but sometimes influence real life. This captivating study will appeal to those interested in children's literature and education, both students and the general reader, taking us on a not altogether comfortable trip down memory lane.

We often hear that gaining the vote was the first major legal change for women in this country; the subject is now included as a part of our national curriculum. We have undoubtedly come a long way; women today lead very different lives to ones they led in the past. But how did we get here? Do you know what actually happened between the time when a wife was expected to be submissive to her husband, treated as a second-class citizen and confined to her domestic sphere, and the liberating time when women finally achieved the financial and legal independence that could be so easily taken for granted? This had to be achieved before the vote was even won! Western women today have the privilege of a relatively equal footing, but all around us, we hear stories of women in other cultures who are in the process of obtaining this freedom, or who are still desperately fighting for it. We have been there – the parallels are obvious, we only have to look back. Changing the Rules looks at how children were conditioned to play their future parts in the marriage game and how Victorian women went on to challenge the rules of play. By listening to the women’s voices and by sharing their own, often shocking experiences, you will learn to appreciate just how difficult their task was, and why we should not undervalue their achievement. This fascinating look back into women’s history will appeal to those with an interest in the Victorian period, as well as readers wishing to learn more about the struggles that women faced.