While a book should not be judged by its covers, the image on the front cover of Mark Froud’s sociocultural study about the concept of the lost child in literature and culture might be seen to provide a succinct pictorial summary of the book, a visual summation of arguments put forward by the author. The image is a photographic representation of a blindfolded blonde girl in a vintage dress, her mouth slightly open and her arms raised, seemingly searching or feeling her way ahead with the open palms of her hands. As a representation of a child accompanying a text written by an adult for adults, the image reinforces the point Froud makes in Chapter 2, that in one of the fundamental forms of narrative, namely folk stories, children are objects of adult representation because the stories are not for children, but about children.
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