Animals, Museum Culture and Children's Literature in Nineteenth-Century Britain: Curious Beasties by Laurence Talairach

Abstract

Reviewed by: Animals, Museum Culture and Children's Literature in Nineteenth-Century Britain: Curious Beasties by Laurence Talairach Clayton Tarr (bio) Animals, Museum Culture and Children's Literature in Nineteenth-Century Britain: Curious Beasties. By Laurence Talairach. Palgrave Macmillan, 2021. Laurence Talairach's Curious Beasties is a welcome addition to children's literature studies, especially to the continuing work on the intersections of natural science and children's literature during the long nineteenth century. Talairach traces the influx of [End Page 437] animals, both zoological and paleontological, brought to England from around the world and displayed in museums and menageries. These living, skeletal, and taxidermy specimens not only "illustrated the expansion of knowledge," but also "embodied British power and hegemony" (2). Children became a crucial part of this dual impact of exotic animal collection and display, being encouraged to participate in natural history "in the hope of moulding young minds into future British and imperial citizens" (3). The way that museums "offered visitors an experience of the natural world under control" also inculcates proper and productive children (4). The wonderous animals displayed for eager audiences "could simultaneously transport and instruct" (7), Talairach argues, while also "captur[ing] the elusive reality of imperial Britain" (8). Children's books similarly "conjured up the British empire and its booming capitalist economy through adventures where characters could both feel and see the urge to possess and subjugate these 'curious beasties'" (274). At the same time, however, children's literature sometimes provided "the opportunity to question the ideologies of imperialism" (274). Regardless of the ideological stance, children's literature of the long nineteenth century imaginatively represented "the sense of wonderment produced by museum culture" (10). Structurally, Curious Beasties moves both chronology through the long nineteenth century and from broad movements to discrete readings of nineteenth-century children's authors, including Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, and Edith Nesbit. I find the latter half of the book more compelling, though the first half is just as engaging and readable. Chapter 2 explores how children's literature of Georgian England uses "curious beasties" to "disseminate knowledge about the natural world" (32). Moving ahead to the Victorian period, chapter 3 further probes the "appropriation of animals" to examine how live animals "actively participated in the development of children's literature" (12, 73). Chapter 4 investigates how children's periodicals encouraged "children's interest in natural history collecting" (126). Talairach also studies the rise of taxidermy, which "represented a period when naturalists willingly explored and promoted the relationship between science and myth, or knowledge and narrative" (173). Chapter 5 examines nonsense literature by Lear and Carroll, which "foregrounded and questioned the issue of species classification" (176). Carroll's "curious beasties," in particular, "probe the era's taxonomic practices" (19). Talairach concludes with a chapter on representations of fossil discoveries in Victorian and Edwardian children's literature, particularly focusing on Nesbit, whose "curious beasties" "convey her stance on imperialism and consumerism and challenge the master narrative of British control over the natural world" (20). The main concern I have with Talairach's book is that I consistently found myself wanting a more expansive vision. Science fiction, in particular, which experienced a concurrent "golden age," seems relevant to the study, especially in regard to the [End Page 438] "human/animal divide" that Talairach frequently mentions. Certainly, H. G. Wells imagined grotesque and subversive menageries, challenging practices such as vivisection, which Talairach chooses not to pursue. Are not many of Carroll's monstrosities in Wonderland and the Looking-Glass World examples of particularly disturbing cross-species (if not also subject/object melding) surgical experiments? And what about J. M. Barrie's own island, the Neverland where "beasts" occupy a crucial position in the circle of life and death? I am also left wondering about other forms of children's or adolescent writing in the Victorian period, particularly boys' adventure stories. H. Rider Haggard's novels, for example, often hinge on the role animals play in Britain's imperial project. I am also left a little disappointed that Curious Beasties does not spend more time with Christina Rossetti. A short discussion of "Goblin Market" (1862) appears in chapter one, but it is mostly to...