Presenting a kind of anatomy of childhood, this book offers a conjuration of childhood ranging from mill hands and chimney sweeps to two queens of England. It embraces the whole gamut of the English poets; mathematicians and philosophers, though not so plentiful, are discovered to have been children once.
Covering the period from the publication of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" to "Winnie-the-Pooh", this book examines the lives and writings of Lewis Carroll, Kenneth Grahame, George Macdonald, Louisa May Alcott, Frances Hodgson Burnett, A A Milne and others whose works make up the Golden Age of children's literature.