British Hymn Books for Children, 1800-1900

Alisa Clapp-Itnyre is Professor of English at Indiana University East, USA.

• Contents: Introduction: Re-tuning the history of childhood with chords and verses; Creating communities for song: class and gender in children’s hymn-singing experiences; Re-writing the history of children’s literature: three periods of children’s hymnody; Erasing child-adult distinctions: ’crossover’ children’s hymn-texts and tunes; Staging the child: agency and stasis for children in art and hymn-book illustrations; Reforming society: missionary, bands of hope, and bands of mercy hymns; Resurrecting the child: the cult of the deathbed, hymns of faith, and children of life; Works cited; Index.

"This is a highly original work on an important topic, of the kind that makes readers wonder why nobody has ever tackled the subject before." - Nicholas Temperley, University of Illinois, USA"British Hymn Books for Children, 1800–1900: Re-Tuning the History of Childhood is a remarkable book. In its thoroughness and scholarly detail, it is a lesson to those, myself included, who have hitherto dealt with children’s hymns without considering the complexity of the topic. Alisa Clapp-Itnyre is not afraid to take us on and to defend her point of view firmly, if politely: of the argument of one celebrated critic she writes, ‘I would suggest a few clarifications to this assessment’. She has earned the right to say this by the comprehensiveness of her coverage: there is very little on the topic that she does not seem to have thought of, and she has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the hymn books of the period." - J. R. Watson, University of Durham, UK"This is an ambitious book, addressing not only the technical issues associated with hymn book production in the nineteenth century but setting the books and the hymns within the society and culture of their time." - Stephen Orchard, Westminster College, Cambridge, UK