relocating nimbly among literary and old texts, Monica Flegel presents a much-needed interpretive framework for realizing the categorical formula of kid cruelty popularized by way of the nationwide Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to teenagers (NSPCC) within the past due 19th century. Flegel considers a variety of recognized and extra vague texts from the mid-eighteenth century to the early 20th, together with philosophical writings by means of Locke and Rousseau, poetry via Coleridge, Blake, and Caroline Norton, works through newshounds and reformers like Henry Mayhew and Mary chippie, and novels by way of Frances Trollope, Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, and Arthur Morrison. taking on the most important themes corresponding to the linking of youngsters with animals, the determine of the kid performer, the connection among trade and baby endangerment, and the matter of youth delinquency, Flegel examines the emergence of kid abuse as a topic of criminal and social situation in England, and its connection to previous, essentially literary representations of endangered little ones. With the emergence of the NSPCC and the hot crime of cruelty to childrens, new professions and genres, reminiscent of baby safety and social casework, supplanted literary works because the authoritative voices within the definition of social ills and their medication. Flegel argues that this improvement had fabric results at the lives of youngsters, in addition to profound implications for the function of sophistication in representations of anguish and abused young ones. Combining nuanced shut readings of person texts with persuasive interpretations in their affects and boundaries, Flegel's e-book makes an important contribution to the background of early life, social welfare, the relations, and Victorian philanthropy.