Goblins not Fairies

I have been reading this rather large book:

A Very Large Book

I think exhaustive is the adjective used for this kind of biography, which covers everything, absolutely everything, there is to be known about the subject.

I did find a very interesting little gem in it.  One of Christina Rossetti's well-known works is Goblin Market.  She was insistent that it must never be referred to as having a fairy subject matter,
and that the word fairy must never be used in conjunction with the book.  One of the things she had against fairy imagery was that in Victorian times it was an excuse for depicting naked children.  Here is the relevant passage from the Jan Marsh biography:

"And on another occasion she took a very severe line when Shields brought round some drawings by a young artist, evidently thinking that the author of Goblin Market would like pictures of  'exquisite child fairies, attired only in gauzy wings'.  He was mistaken.  'Dear Mr Shields,' she wrote the next morning, apologising for having allowed politeness to mask her true views:  'I think last night in admiring Miss T's work I might better have said less, unless I could have managed to convey more.  I do admire the grace and beauty of the designs, but do not think that to call a figure a 'fairy' settles the right and wrong of such figures...'  Child nudity was not acceptable in any form, and 'last night's blunder must not make me the slave of false shame this morning'.  Shields would surely agree that all should 'forbear such delineations, and that most of all women artists would lead the way'.  She would have been dismayed to know the Gertrude Thomson's 'little nudities' were also ardently admired by other men she respected, including Ruskin and Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), though her sense of their indecency would have been confirmed by the latter's coyly flirtatious request that the artist make friends with 'any exceptionally nice little nudity' who was willing to be victimised for his photographic benefit...
Christina's objections to naked fairies were based on the perceived spread of pornography and the demand by clients of high-class brothels for the sexual services of young girls.  Her views may have been narrow, but they were not foolish."

I thought it very interesting that Christina Rossetti has these objections, as I have found some modern fairy imagery rather queasy.  It is not to object to fairies in general, discussion or depiction of, just those very specific images.  I do not think there is any justification to depict fairies as naked children.  There is no particular reason for fairies to be depicted naked at all, unless you want to.  Fairy lore does have a sexual content, but not historically, I think, involving children.  But I don't want to think about it that much, I'd rather get back to fairies in dark folk and weird folk.