The Wolves of Willoughby Chase

The mid-19th century through the early 20th century is often referred to by literary critics as the first Golden Age of Children’s Literature. There are six British authors who characterize this period: Kenneth Grahame (The Wind in The Willows) J. M. Barrie (Peter Pan), Francis Hodgson Burnett (A Little Princess), Rudyard Kipling (The Jungle Book), Beatrix Potter (The Tale of Peter Rabbit) and E. Nesbit (Five Children and It). These prolific authors established, between 1865 to 1911, a new approach to children’s literature, in particular the children’s novel. 

During the Victorian period the popularity of the novel exploded in England, but children’s books were, until roughly the publication of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in 1865, usually focused on specific moral instruction and were ultimately didactic in nature. Carroll, and the authors mentioned above, reoriented children’s books as imaginative literary artworks in their own right. Mixing fantastical worlds with innocence and hope, the Golden Age of Children’s Literature created a serious genre of novels for and about children. The high literary quality of many of these novels, along with their marketability and popularity, raised both the critical and commercial profile of children’s literature. 

Though Aiken wrote her books starting in the 1960s, she sets her Wolves Chronicles books in the 19th century and they share the language and style of Victorian works from the Golden Age of Children’s Literature. British children’s literature from this period often features orphaned children, like Sylvia, who find themselves in extraordinary circumstances. Another hallmark of such classic works are created worlds that are very close to the real world but with a few key differences, such as in E. Nesbit’s Psammead series. Similarly, Aiken’s world in The Wolves of Willoughby Chase reimagines the past to create a realistic fantasy setting for her heroes and heroines.