The objectivity of realist literary works enables readers a concise picture of the social and political conditions of the contemporary life. The conditions criticised in 19th century Anglo-American novels provide the readers with an insight into a child's world. A child figure particularly offered new perspectives in Victorian literature. Emphasis was put on childhood innocence, which was subjected to change due to the hard and merciless conditions of the social stratification of that time. Slavery, child labour and cruel upbringing were part of growing up for most children. The literature of Charles Dickens, Charles Kingsley and Harriet Beecher Stowe, all of them recognised as classics today, involves an authentic image of their contemporary life, marked by their own life experiences. Children in the three chosen works are typical representatives of child-slave, child-worker and child-orphan, all of them at the mercy of reality.
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