ABSTRACT
What is ‘teenage fiction’, and in what ways is it distinguishable from fiction intended for a younger audience, or even from that intended for adults? The easy answers will not satisfy for long: you have only to watch an eight year old avidly reading Willard Price adventure stories in which nineteen year olds narrowly avoid being devoured by crocodiles, polar bears, or killer whales, or Chalet School adventures where the triplets have to speak in French three times a week, to realize that it is not the age of the central character that determines the target audience.
