TREASE, Geoffrey.

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Bows Against the Barons. First British edition of this influential children's novel inspired by the legend of Robin Hood. A firmly left-wing retelling, it marked a shift from the swashbuckling and aristocratic historical fiction of the previous century, instead portraying Robin as a revolutionary radical and illustrating him with a hammer and sickle (p. 35)."The innovations of Geoffrey Trease introduced a fresh modern style and democratic point of view to a genre that had become fossilized... He was determined to show not the glamour of its hero, but the brutal conditions in which the peasants lived. This represented a marked change in the outlook of children's historical fiction, which in the 19th century had worked on the assumption that a middle-class readership would be primarily interested in the lives of the aristocracy" (Watson, p. 335).It was published simultaneously in the US. The 1948 second edition softened the political aspects, removing many uses of "comrade" and replacing the illustrations.

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