Animals and Their Children in Victorian Culture is a collection of original essays that explore the representation of animals in children’s literature. It focuses on the influence of animals to "civilize" children (and not the animals) in moral ethics and proper Victorian behavior, especially regarding human treatment of animals.

Introduction: Little Beasts on Tight LeashesBrenda Ayres and Sarah E. MaierChapter 1Why Did the Cow Jump over the Moon? Animals (but Mostly Pussies) in Nursery RhymesBrenda AyresChapter 2Wanted Dead or Alive: Rabbits in Victorian Children’s LiteratureKeridiana ChezChapter 3"In friendly chat with bird or beast … mixing together things grave and gay": Desireful Animals and Humans in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking GlassAnna KoustinoudiChapter 4A Brotherhood of Wolves: Loyalty in Yiddish and Anglo-Jewish FolktalesLindsay Katzir and Brandon KatzirChapter 5Advocating for the Least of These: Empowering Children and Animals in The Band of Mercy Advocate Alisa Clapp-ItnyreChapter 6Bush Animals, Developmental Time, and Colonial Identity in Victorian Australian Children’s Fiction Christie HarnerChapter 7The Serpent; or, the Real King of the JungleStephen BasdeoChapter 8Learning Masculinity: Education, Boyhood, and the Animal in Thomas Hughes’ Tom Brown’s School DaysAlicia AlvesChapter 9Unruly Females on the Farm: Farmed Animal Mothers and the Dismantling of the Species Hierarchy in 19th Century Literature for ChildrenStacy Hoult-SarosChapter 10The Child is Father of the Man: Lessons Animals Teach Children in George Eliot’s WritingsConstance FulmerChapter 11Neither Brutes nor Beasts: Animals, Children and Young Persons and/in the BrontësSarah E. MaierChapter 12Animals, Children, and the Fantasies of the CircusSusan NanceChapter 13Imperial Pets: Monkey-Girls, Man-Cubs, and Dog-Faced Boys on Exhibition in Victorian Britain Shannon Scott