3 Review(s)

'A trained scout will see little signs and tracks, he puts them together in his mind and quickly reads a meaning from them such as an untrained man would never arrive at.' A startling amalgam of Zulu war-cry and imperial and urban myth, of borrowed tips on health and hygiene, and object lessons in woodcraft, Robert Baden-Powell's Scouting for Boys (1908) is the original blueprint and 'self-instructor' of the Boy Scout Movement. An all-time bestseller in the English-speaking world, second only to the Bible, this primer of 'yarns and pictures' constitutes probably the most influential manual for youth ever published. Yet the book is at the same time a roughly composed hodge-podge of jingoist lore and tracker legend, padded with lengthy quotations from adventure fiction and B-P's own autobiography, and seamed through with the multiple anxieties of its time: fears of degeneration, concerns about masculinity and self-restraint, invasion paranoia. Elleke Boehmer's edition of Scouting for Boys is the first to reprint the original text and illustrations, and her fine introduction investigates a book that has been cited as an authority by militarists and pacifists, capitalists and environmentalists alike. Special Features Baden-Powell's bestselling manual has become a bestseller all over again. This is the first, and only, critical edition of Scouting for Boys, whose republication in hardback in 2004 prompted huge review coverage and popular interest, with serialization in The Times and coverage from the THES to The Oldie 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.