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Children's Literature and the Rise of 'Mind Cure' Anne Stiles (Saint Louis University, Missouri)

Children's Literature and the Rise of 'Mind Cure' By Anne Stiles (Saint Louis University, Missouri)

Children's Literature and the Rise of 'Mind Cure' by Anne Stiles (Saint Louis University, Missouri)


Summary

Positive thinking is good for you. Analysing nineteenth-century literature through the pervading lens of New Thought, which foreshadowed concepts of twentieth-century popular psychology, this volume uncovers unnoticed aspects of canonical works and classic children's literature to reveal a new area of academic inquiry for scholars and students.

Children's Literature and the Rise of 'Mind Cure' Summary

Children's Literature and the Rise of 'Mind Cure': Positive Thinking and Pseudo-Science at the Fin de Siecle by Anne Stiles (Saint Louis University, Missouri)

Positive thinking is good for you. You can become healthy, wealthy, and influential by using the power of your mind to attract what you desire. These kooky but commonplace ideas stem from a nineteenth-century new religious movement known as 'mind cure' or New Thought. Related to Mary Baker Eddy's Christian Science, New Thought was once a popular religious movement with hundreds of thousands of followers, and has since migrated into secular contexts such as contemporary psychotherapy, corporate culture, and entertainment. New Thought also pervades nineteenth- and early twentieth-century children's literature, including classics such as The Secret Garden, Anne of Green Gables, and A Little Princess. In this first book-length treatment of New Thought in Anglophone fiction, Anne Stiles explains how children's literature encouraged readers to accept New Thought ideas - especially psychological concepts such as the inner child - thereby ensuring the movement's survival into the present day.

Children's Literature and the Rise of 'Mind Cure' Reviews

'This title has the potential for remarkable versatility in teaching and research ... Highly recommended.' A. White, Choice

About Anne Stiles (Saint Louis University, Missouri)

Anne Stiles is Associate Professor of English and Coordinator of Medical Humanities at Saint Louis University, Missouri. She is the author of Popular Fiction and Brain Science in the Late Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, 2011) and the editor of Neurology and Literature, 1866-1920 (2007). She also co-edited two volumes in part of the Progress in Brain Research series (2013). Her work has been supported by long-term grants from the Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (2016-2017); the Huntington Library (2009-2010); and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2006-2007).

Table of Contents

Introduction; 1. The Inner Child in Frances Hodgson Burnett's Little Lord Fauntleroy and Sara Crewe; 2. Fauntleroy's Ghost: New Thought in Henry James's The Turn of the Screw; 3. Rewriting the Rest Cure in Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden; 4. Sunshine and Shadow: New Thought in Anne of Green Gables; 5. Millennial Motherhood in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland Trilogy; Epilogue. The Cinematic Afterlife of New Thought Fiction.

Additional information

NPB9781108823777
9781108823777
1108823777
Children's Literature and the Rise of 'Mind Cure': Positive Thinking and Pseudo-Science at the Fin de Siecle by Anne Stiles (Saint Louis University, Missouri)
New
Paperback
Cambridge University Press
20221110
270
N/A
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