Adapting Canonical Texts in Children's Literature

Adaptations of canonical texts have played an important role throughout the history of children's literature and have been seen as an active and vital contributing force in establishing a common ground for intercultural communication across generations and borders. This collection analyses different examples of adapting canonical texts in or for children's literature encompassing adaptations of English classics for children and young adult readers and intercultural adaptations of children's classics across Europe. The international contributors assess both historical and transcultural adaptation in relation to historically and regionally contingent concepts of childhood. By assessing how texts move across age-specific or national borders, they examine the traces of a common literary and cultural heritage in European children's literature.

Anja Muller is Professor of English Literature and Culture at the University of Siegen, Germany. Her publications include Fashioning Childhood in the Eighteenth Century ( Ed.Ashgate, 2006) and Framing Childhood in Eighteenth-Century English Periodicals and Prints, 1689-1789 (Ashgate, 2009) which was designated the Honor Book 2009 of the Children's Literature Association.