Play in The Little Lame Prince, Play in the Little Lame Prince

Various editions of The Little Lame Prince and His Travelling Cloak feature an image of Prince Dolor on his cloak, sometimes wearing his spectacles, reaching out to “snatch at the topmost twig of the tallest tree” (Craik 24). Several critics, such as Philipose, suggest that the prince's cloak can be equated with the imagination, allowing him to overcome his physical limitations. On the other hand, Hingston claims, “Dolor’s lack of control over his gifts…suggests that they exist outside of him rather than as part of his imagination” (373). Though the prince’s cloak exists as a real…

The topics of play and childhood rapidly received attention in the Victorian period, with Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses providing an example of a new way to conceptualize childhood. The ‘garden’ might be understood as the transitional space between childhood and adulthood. Webb discusses the significance of Stevenson’s title: 

The garden is an extension of the enclosed domestic space of the house, where there is safety, but also the space for free and imaginative play. It can be a place of adventure, discovery, pondering, and…

For Friedrich Froebel (1782-1852), play represented the “independent outward expression of inward action and life” (29). In Maria Dinah Craik’s The Little Lame Prince and His Traveling Cloak (1874), play and toys are consistently used to contextualize Prince Dolor’s maturation, while also providing insight into Dolor’s expanding view of himself and the world around him. In this way, toys and playing function in Craik’s Little Lame Prince in the same way as Froebel’s Play Gifts. 

Dolor’s most cherished toys are “his beloved headless horse, broken cars, sheep…