Posted by andyb on November 05, 2008 at 20:43:29 user beardbiter.
In Reply to: Re: What happened to the Depression? posted by andyb on November 05, 2008 at 20:33:02:
19th C children's writers went for gritty social realism (e.g. Dickens) but in the 20th C childhood began to be sacralised, turned into a sort of dreamtime protected from the profane world of economics and worse. Now, writers who allow the 'real world' to intrude into children's fiction are often pilloried for allowing 'political correctness' to spoil the ‘innocence’ of childhood. AR may have been following, or even pioneering this trend, perhaps for personal reasons. His fictional children, whatever their class, seem to be spared adult money worries, unlike, for example, those of E Nesbit.