French Literature Reviews - 2026

The History of Female Childhood from the Terror to Lolita
Other Literary Studies

The Passion of Little Girls: The History of Female Childhood from the Terror to Lolita

Laura Kreyder,

Presses de l'Université d'Artois, 2004, 20

Publisher's Overview:

Do little girls have a history? And if so, how did this subject of interest emerge—this new focal point transcending social classes and narrative genres? Around 1850, texts began to appear that would later become literary classics: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in England, Sophie's Misfortunes in France, and Little Women in America. A little later, Freud formulated a theory of seduction, laying the groundwork for the Oedipus complex. Even the Church turned its attention to the visions of young girls in order to elevate them to beatification. A century later, this myth materialized in Lolita—a bitter, despondent vision of the femme fatale and Western love. Little girls indeed possess a history, the twists and turns of which can be traced through literature: from the model of the accomplished young maiden of the pre-revolutionary era, through the Romantic age, which reappraised both childhood and womanhood, up to the triumph of children's literature, culminating in the aftermath of the Second World War. We can trace the trajectory of female childhood through the works of Madame de Staël, Jane Austen, Percy and Mary Shelley, Byron, Charlotte Brontë, Madame de Ségur, George Sand, Victor Hugo, Marie Bonaparte, and Vladimir Nabokov, not to mention extra-literary figures who captured the cultural imagination, such as Eugénie de Montijo and Bernadette Soubirous.

Laura Kreyder teaches at the University of Milan-Bicocca. She has published an essay on the Countess of Ségur (L'Enfance des saints et des autres, Schena-Nizet, 1987), a novel on Saint Thérèse of Lisieux (Thérèse Martin, Albin Michel, 1988), as well as numerous articles on children's literature and nineteenth-century writing.

The study of childhood as a distinct social and cultural category gained significant momentum during the nineteenth century. In this context, literature played a central role in constructing the image of the young girl, moving from the didactic moral tales of the pre-revolutionary era to the complex psychological portraits of the Romantic and post-Romantic periods. By examining the evolution of these narratives, the work traces how cultural perceptions of femininity and innocence were shaped by changing social norms and intellectual movements.

The text examines the trajectory of the female child through various literary traditions, including the works of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Sophie's Misfortunes, and Little Women. It considers how authors such as Madame de Staël, Jane Austen, and Vladimir Nabokov contributed to the cultural imagination, while also noting the influence of religious figures and early psychoanalytic theories. By connecting these diverse texts and figures, the analysis highlights the emergence of the young girl as a focal point across different genres. Readers interested in the history of childhood and gender representation may find this study relevant.