The dissemination of classical material to children has long been a major form of popularization with far-reaching effects. This volume explores the reception of classical antiquity in childhood from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries in Britain and the United States, focusing on myth and historical fiction in particular.

List of Illustrations 0: Introduction 1: "Very Capital Reading for Children": Hawthorne, Kingsley, and the Transformation of Myth into Children's Literature 2: Classics in their Own Right: Visions and Revisions of Hawthorne and Kingsley 3: "Steeped in Greek Mythology": The First Half of the Twentieth Century 4: "Be a Roman Soldier": History, Historical Fiction, and National Identity 5: Ancient History for Girls 6: The Ancient Prehistory of Modern Adults 7: Pan in the Alps: Child and Adult in H.D.'s The Hedgehog 8: Epilogue Bibliography Index

Childhood and the Classics grapples with a large topic that crosses geographic, temporal and disciplinary boundaries. In spite of this ambitious scope, the authors do an excellent job throughout of situating their discussions within the literary and historical context ofeach period being addressed. ... As such, it is a work that will appeal not only to scholars of childhood studies and classical studies, but also to those with a wider interest in important literary developments of the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries.

Offers detailed interpretive readings of works by both well-known authors and authors no longer widely read, both deepening and broadening scholarly understanding of the tradition Explores the childhood encounter from a range of informative perspectives, treating not only books directed towards children, but also adult books read by children ("crossover" texts), and adult literature that engages with childhood Places particular works and evolving traditions within their historical contexts through rigorous attention to their background and origins Addresses issues of current critical interest in both classical reception studies and children's literature studies, including questions of nationality and gender Richly illustrated throughout with an eight-page colour plate section, supporting and complementing discussions of the important role and history of illustration throughout this period

Sheila Murnaghan earned an AB from Harvard University, a BA from the University of Cambridge, and a PhD from the University of North Carolina. She taught at Yale University from 1979 until 1990, then moved to the University of Pennsylvania where she is currently the Alfred Reginald Allen Memorial Professor of Greek. Her research focuses on ancient Greek epic and tragedy, gender in classical culture, and classical reception, especially in the twentieth century. She is the author of Disguise and Recognition in the Odyssey (2nd ed.; Lexington Books, 2011), and the co-editor of Women and Slaves in Greco-Roman Culture: Differential Equations (Routledge, 1998; with Sandra R. Joshel), Odyssean Identities In Modern Cultures: The Journey Home (Ohio State University Press, 2014; with Hunter Gardner), and Hip Sublime: Beat Writers and the Classical Tradition (Ohio State University Press, 2018; with Ralph M. Rosen). Deborah H. Roberts has a BA from Swarthmore College, an MA from Stanford University, and a PhD from Yale University. She is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature at Haverford College, where she has taught since 1977. Her research has been primarily concerned with Greek tragedy, classical reception, and translation studies, with a focus on the translation of Greek tragedy and of Greek and Latin texts once held to require expurgation. She is the author of Apollo and his Oracle in the Oresteia (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984), co-editor of Classical Closure: Reading the End in Greek and Latin Literature (Princeton University Press, 1997; with Francis M. Dunn and Don Fowler), and translator of Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound (Hackett, 2012) and Euripides' Ion (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999) and Andromache (University of Chicago Press, 2013).

Offers detailed interpretive readings of works by both well-known authors and authors no longer widely read, both deepening and broadening scholarly understanding of the tradition Explores the childhood encounter from a range of informative perspectives, treating not only books directed towards children, but also adult books read by children ("crossover" texts), and adult literature that engages with childhood Places particular works and evolving traditions within their historical contexts through rigorous attention to their background and origins Addresses issues of current critical interest in both classical reception studies and children's literature studies, including questions of nationality and gender Richly illustrated throughout with an eight-page colour plate section, supporting and complementing discussions of the important role and history of illustration throughout this period