Anne Tyler, Tumble Tower

Cecilia Donohue (Independent Scholar - North America)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1985

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

Nestled within Anne Tyler’s lengthy, successful, and ongoing run of critically and commercially successful novels of family life in the Southeastern United States is her sole contribution to date to the genre of Children’s Literature.

Tumble Tower

(1993), published between the releases of

Saint Maybe

(1991) and

Ladder of Years

(1995), relates an upbeat, gentle tale geared to youngsters aged 4 to 8. Its production can be described as a family affair—Tyler’s prose is supplemented by watercolor illustrations by her daughter, Mitra Modarressi.

The four characters of Tumble Tower—the royal family of an unnamed kingdom—are King Clement the Clean, Queen Nelly the Neat, Prince Thomas the Tidy, and Princess Molly the Messy. The alliterative names and descriptors reveal which of the four

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

655 words

Citation: Donohue, Cecilia. "Tumble Tower". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 10 July 2022 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=14604, accessed 19 April 2024.]

Save this article