What is new about Robson's argument is her contention that for many well-to-do men the image of perfect childhood, lost and desired, remained feminine... Understood this way, the idealisation of little girls in Victorian culture is an attempt to repossess the remembered self rather than a wish for sexual possession of the other. -- Dinah Birch London Review of Books [An] illuminating study of the relationships that existed between little girls and a whole synod of Victorian middle-class men... What Robson detects in these men is less paedophilic desire and more a melancholy sense of something lost... Ruskin, Carroll, and their fellow enthusiasts, she contends, were chasing their own pasts... -- Matthew Sweet Independent on Sunday This wide-ranging, penetrating investigation contributes significantly to the areas of childhood and gender studies, and 19th century British social history. Library Journal Robson skillfully interweaves the tales of these two seminal Victorian [Ruskin and Carroll] with discussion of child-labour legislation, painting, literature and conduct books. -- Gill Gregory Times Literary Supplement An important addition... Well written, scrupulously researched. Choice [Victorians] certainly had a complicated relationship with sexuality and the young. This book can be recommended for throwing at least some new light on this troubled topic. -- Nicholas Tucker Times Higher Education Supplement A provocative addition to ongoing debates about gender and subjectivity. -- Christine Roth Nineteenth Century Studies An excellent book ... powerfully and persuasively written ... free of jargon, rich in its scholarship, and fully in touch with recent work in a burgeoning field. In all, it is a valuable addition to a growing list of books that help us see the Victorians and their world in fresher, richer ways. -- Carole G. Silver Nineteenth-Century Literature
