Sir John Tenniel: Alice's White Knight by Rodney Engen (review)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: 102Victorian Review the metaphor of the Angel-in-the-House is evoked throughout as a shorthand reference to the ideals of asexuaUty and selflessness, Nelson grounds her use of it solely in twentieth-century interpretations or deployments of the figure; she never, for example, mentions the metaphor's popularization through Coventry Patmore's poem of that name, nor does she discuss the poem's reception and popularity in the nineteenth century. Similarly, Nelson fails to distinguish adequately between "feminism" and "femininism" (and why is there no acknowledgement of Ellen Moers who coined the term, which she put to a sUghtiy different use, in her 1977 Literary Women"!) or between such terms as "power" and "influence," which are used interchangeably and largely uncritically. However, these are smaU quibbles; the real and important contribution of this book is its detailed charting of the ways in which children's Uterature is a primary socializing force and its uncovering of the degree to which gender constructions serve larger historical forces. Boys Will Be GirL· will be of interest not only to critics of children's Uterature but to theorists of gender. Works Cited Carpenter, Humphrey. Secret Gardens: The GoldenAge cfChildren's Literature. London: Unwin. 1985. Demers, Patricia and Gordon Moyles, eds. From Instruction to Delight: An Anthology of Children's Literature to 1850. Toronto: OUP, 1982. Moers, Ellen. Literary Women: The Great Writers. New York: Anchor, 1977. Townsend, John Rowe. Writtenfor Children: An Outline ofEnglish-Language Children's Literature. Boston: The Horn Book, 1965, rev. 1974. JO-ANN WALLACE University ofAlberta Rodney Engen. SirJohn Tenniel: Alice's White Knight. Aldershot: Scolar P, 1991. ix + 232. $55 US (cloth). "As for poUtical opinions, I have none," said Tenniel—a surprising claim from the man who was Punch's chief political cartoonist for forty years, and who created our most lasting images of Disraeli, Gladstone, Bismarck, Prince Albert, and the many recognizable icons that achieved lasting currency in Reviews103 school history books (105). Rodney Engen's biography, Sir John Tenniel: Alice's White Knight, includes other equaUy surprising testimony from Tenniel. "Do they suppose there is anything funny about meV he asked, when invited to join the Punch staff in 1850 (26). And in spite of his long and successful career as a poUtical cartoonist, he maintained an aust