Towards the end of the nineteenth century children's literature in England entered a Golden Age. Within the space of seventy years some of the greatest classics were written; from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, to The Wind in the Willows, Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh and The Tales of Beatrix Potter. Humphrey Carpenter, co-author of The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature and author of several highly acclaimed biographies, reassesses the achievements of this fascinating group of writers whose work has delighted generations and has been as influential in its way as that of the romantics or modernists.