Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland given ‘white supremacy’ trigger warnings

University library gives historical children’s stories disclaimers for ‘colonialist narratives’ that could be ‘offensive’ to modern readers

Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland are among a collection of children’s stories that have been given a university trigger warning for “white supremacy”.
York St John University has added the disclaimer to a collection of historical children’s books, including works by JM Barrie, Lewis Carroll and Jules Verne.
Readers are warned that classic tales for children may contain offensive examples of “white supremacy”. Adventure stories and well-known novels written in the 19th and early 20th centuries are likely to include “colonialist narratives”, the message adds.
It warns that the vocabulary and illustrations in these works may appear “racist” and “upsetting and offensive” to modern audiences.
York St John states in the disclaimer for the Rees-Williams Collection of Children’s Literature that it will continue to care for the library to maintain “evidence of the racist marginalisation”.
Around 3,000 items sit in the restricted-access collection given to the university by a former librarian, which contains works including Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Peter and Wendy, and Around the World in Eighty Days.
An online disclaimer for the collection states: “Within the 150 years of children’s writing which is represented in the collection, there is a widespread occurrence of colonialist narratives which centre white supremacy, and racist and orientalist methods of both fictional and historical storytelling.
“As such, it is possible, if not likely, that items consulted from the collection will include language and visual imagery which is racist, and many people may find their contents upsetting and offensive.”
JM Barrie’s stories about Peter Pan include some references to “savages” inhabiting Neverland. Also, in the play Peter and Wendy from 1904, Peter is called the “Great White Father” while among the “Red Indians”, whom he calls “pickaninnies”.
In Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days, Phileas Fogg travels across continents divided by imperial powers, and includes passages about an Indian woman about to undergo bride-burning, a Hong Kong opium den and outdated vocabulary such as “coolies”.
Some academics have tentatively suggested that the hookah-smoking caterpillar in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is an orientalist depiction, which uses stereotypes of an exotic East.
Other tales in the collection have a more explicitly imperial context and include works by the 19th-century Scottish writer RM Ballantyne, with titles including The Red Man’s Revenge and The Cannibal Islands.
The disclaimer for the collection states that York St John rejects all “stereotypes and offensive narratives”, adding that the contents of the library force librarians to “examine why we continue to preserve and house such items when their ability to cause damage endures”.
One reason for persevering the potentially offensive books is given in the warning, which states: “We are also committed to preserving and providing access to the evidence of the racist marginalisation and stereotyping of peoples through children’s literature during this time period.
“To do so requires continuous learning, reflection and consultation on how such a collection should be managed, and as such we welcome conversation about and research into the collection.”
The collection contains boys’ adventure stories by popular Victorian writer W H G Kingston, such as The Young Rajah, along with stories by war contemporary correspondent and novelist G A Henty.
These include By Right of Conquest, a tale of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire, and works by professor and author Charles Kingsley which are set in the same colonial period.
The coalition also spans a range of religious writings for young people by Victorian author Hesba Stretton, who vastly outsold Lewis Carroll in her day, and a host of Boy’s Own stories.
The collection was assembled by James Rees-Williams, who worked as a librarian at York St John in the 1970s, and it contains more than 3000 historic children’s books from 1780 to the 1920s. Researchers must request to access the restricted collection.
York St John has been contacted for comment.