Fairies in Nineteenth-Century Art and Literature

Nicola Bown is a lecturer in the Department of English at Birkbeck College, University of London. She has published articles in Textual Practice, Women: A Cultural Review, and the Journal of Victorian Culture, and worked for the Royal Academy on their Victorian Fairy Paintings show. This is her first book.

• List of illustrations; Acknowledgments; Introduction: small enchantments; 1. Fancies of fairies and spirits and nonsense; 2. Queen Mab among the steam engines; 3. A few fragments of fairyology, shewing its connection with natural history; 4. A broken heart and a pocket full of ashes; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

'Nicola Bown's compelling study brilliantly challenges preconceptions about fairies and fairyland; it will transform all subsequent thinking on the topic. Her book is packed with bold, fresh readings of poems, pictures, natural history and philosophy, with examples ranging from Keats' charm'd magic casements, to the famous case of the Cottingley fairy photographs.' Marina Warner