SCOUTING FOR BOYS: THE ORIGINAL 1908 EDITION

SCOUTING FOR BOYS: THE ORIGINAL 1908 EDITION * The first, and only, critical edition of this world-famous, iconic book.* The only edition to reprint the original text (1908).* The editorial material reveals the true complexity of this fascinating book: the introduction examines the text in relation to several to date unexplored topics - its status as children's literature; its literary and anti-literary qualities; its mosaic effects; its advice on male bonding and masculinity; its intertwining of the health of the body,the nation, and the empire.The edition not only explores contradictions which earlier scholars of Scouting for Boys have attempted to ignore (about sexuality, the environment, and empire) but it is also richly annotated with references to Baden-Powell's original manuscript, pointing to important excisions, borrowings, and revisions.The Notes relate the book to its many informing contexts, from Kipling to Samuel Smiles (author of Self-Help), woodcraft lore to detective fiction, amateur theatre to sex manuals.Baden-Powell's original advice about masturbation, cut from the original, and all subsequent editions of Scouting for Boys, appears as an Appendix. All Baden-Powell's illustrations for the first edition are included.Scouting for Boys (1908) is the original blueprint and 'self-instructor' of the Boy Scout Movement. An all-time bestseller, it is both a handbook and a philosophy for a way of living that replaces self with service, puts country before individual, and duty above all. As well as practical instructions on how to light fires, stalk men and animals, it includes sections on chivalry, self-discipline, self-improvement and citizenship. This new edition reveals its maverick complexity and explores its contradictions about sexuality, the environment, and the empire. READERSHIP:Readers interested in popular culture, youth movements, outdoor recreation, camping and survival, the scout movement, former scouts. Students and readers interested in Victorian studies and literature, fin-de-siecle writing, early twentieth-century literature/modernism, colonial and imperial writing, popular fiction/non-fiction, queer theory and writing, gender and masculinity, postcolonial writing and cultural studies. ISBN: 0-19-280246-1 publish date: 03/14/2005