Category:The Dream Garden: A Children's Annual
Title: The Dream Garden: A Children’s Annual
Editor: Netta Syrett
Publisher: John Baillie
The Dream Garden: A Children’s Annual, published in 1905, is a highly imaginative book of fairy stories, talkative animals, and exotic/foreign countries. The short stories, plays, and poems focus on entertainment and exploring the imagination. Some stories hide a subtle didactic theme, such as being obedient or having confidence in one's own abilities. However, a majority of the stories are written from the perspective of children and carry a sympathetic tone towards children’s view of the world. Adults generally play a very minor role if they are present at all. Young girls compose the majority of protagonists throughout the annual, suggesting a female audience. However, all children are within the audience scope of this publication.
Although The Dream Garden was perhaps not the most popular publication for children in the Victorian era, its editor and contributor, Netta Syrett, did enjoy some recognition. Syrett, author of thirty-eight novels, twenty-seven short stories, four plays, and twenty children's books, received praise from her contemporaries, including notable figures like Henry Harland, John Lane, Max Beerbohm, and W. Somerset Maugham.[1]
To create this annual, Syrett included works from both lesser known authors and prolific authors, many of whom were engaged in social reform. E. Nesbit, one contributor, is credited with innovating magic realism, a form which combined contemporary children in real-world settings with magical objects and adventures. Other noteworthy authors include: Mary E. Mann; Alfred Noyes, author of the well-known poem “The Highwayman;” Laurence Housman; Hilaire Belloc; Fiona Macleod, pseudonym for William Sharp; and Paul Creswick, well-known for his retelling of the Robin Hood myth in Robin Hood and His Adventures.
Though it is called an annual, there is no evidence of any further volumes.
Notes
Submitted by: Harper, Amanda: section 1, Fall 2008
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