Savage girls and wild boys2002

Michael Newton Faber & Faber, 17/03/2011 - Art - 304 pages 3 Reviews A compelling history of extraordinary children - brought up by animals, growing up alone in the wilderness, or locked for long years in solitary confinement.

Wild or feral children have fascinated us down the centuries, and continue to do so today. Michael Newton deftly investigates such infamous cases as Peter the Wild Boy, who gripped the attention of Swift and Defoe; Memmie Le Blanc, the savage Girl of Champagne, a primitive outsider adrift on the streets of Enlightenment; Kaspar Hauser, a romantic orphan confined in a dungeon from infancy for sixteen years; Kamala and Amala, two girls brought up by wolves in the imperial India of the 1920s; and more recently, Genie, the girl locked up in a single room in Los...