Socialists of the Future: Environmentalism and Childhood in Fin-de-siècle Socialist Literature

This project will examine how the representation of childhood in British socialist literature of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries reflects and expresses emerging ecological concerns. This research will contribute to recent eco-critical work in Victorian studies by taking a new approach to established scholarship on the mythology of childhood, examining socialist literature written for adults about children and overlooked socialist literature for children, including lesser known works of well-known socialists, H. G. Wells, E. Nesbit and George Bernard Shaw, alongside that of minor socialist writers. I will investigate the role played by the child - both the child reader and the fictional child - in socialist environmental ideology, looking at themes such as pastoralism, utopianism, environmental guardianship and the Anthropocene. As well as illuminating neglected areas of study in the history of childhood and environmentalism, this project aims to provide historical context for the contemporary involvement of children in sociopolitical issues, such as Greta Thunberg's 'school climate strike' initiative, which she began at age fifteen, and by the recent influx of environmentally and politically conscious children's publishing.