Sale's influence on literary criticism is most evident in his work on children's literature. Prior to his work in the 1960s and 1970s, few professional critics chose to take children's literature seriously, but Sale argued that it could and ought to be given the same respect and scrutiny as adult fiction. In 1978, he published a book entitled Fairy Tales and After, which is essentially a collection of essays defending the literary value of children's literature, and then offering his critical perspective on authors from A. A. Milne to Rudyard Kipling to Beatrix Potter.[5]
In an entirely different field, Sale served as an occasional columnist for the Seattle Weekly, an alternative newspaper, covering the Seattle SuperSonics' season and playoff performance for over twenty years.[8]
Work as a historian
Surprisingly, although Sale's training and life's work focused on English literature, he is today perhaps best known as the author of a book of history—specifically Seattle, Past to Present, which the L.A. Times called "among the best interpretive histories of a major American city" when it was published in 1976,[9] and which Knute Berger, who wrote the introduction for the book's 2019 reissue, describes as a work that has "set a standard for subsequent histories" of Seattle.[10]
Retirement
Roger Sale continued to be a vivid source of literary and intellectual stimulation for colleagues and students after his retirement. He was a mentor to many young literary scholars, and graciously volunteered his time to teach literature courses for University Beyond Bars at Monroe Correctional Complex.
Works
Reading Spenser: An Introduction to The Faerie Queene, 1968
On Writing, 1970
Modern Heroism: Essays on D. H. Lawrence, William Empson and J.R.R. Tolkien, 1973
On Not Being Good Enough: Writings of a Working Critic, 1979
Closer to Home: Writers and Places in England, 1780-1830, 1986
^Roger Sale, Fairy Tales and After: from Snow White to E.B. White" Harvard Univ. Press, 1978. ISBN0-674-29157-3
^Isaacs, Neil D.; Zimbardo, Rose A. (1968). Tolkien and the Critics: Essays on J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. ISBN978-0268002794.
^"Roger Sale". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 4 April 2022.