Period book illustration for Alice in Wonderland
Many Disney films adapt works from the Victorian period, the golden age of children’s literature: Alice in Wonderland, Oliver Twist, Treasure Island, Peter Pan, and the tales of Hans Christian Andersen, among others. Literary scholar Patrick Fleming, author of the recent Animating the Victorians: Disney's Literary History, traces those adaptations from concept to theatrical release and beyond to the sequels, consumer products, and theme park attractions that make up a Disney franchise. During the often decades-long production process, Disney’s writers engaged both with these texts and the contexts in which they were written, their authors’ biographies, and intervening adaptations.
But Disney’s relationship with the Victorians goes beyond adaptations. Walt Disney himself had a similar career to the author-entrepreneur Charles Dickens. Linking the Disney princess franchise to Victorian ideologies, Fleming explores how Disney’s animated musicals, theme parks, copyright practices, and even marketing campaigns depend on cultural assumptions, legal frameworks, and media technologies emerging from 19th-century England. Moreover, Disney’s adaptations influence modern students and scholars of the Victorian period. Ultimately, Fleming illustrates, institutions mediate our understanding of the past, and literary studies remain deeply relevant in a corporate media age.
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