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_Special_ WINTER NUMBER _of_
THE INTERNATIONAL STUDIO
_CHILDREN'S BOOKS AND THEIR ILLUSTRATORS._
_By_ GLEESON WHITE
[Illustration]
THE INTERNATIONAL STUDIO =John Lane=, 140 Fifth Avenue, _New York_
Scribner's New Books for the Young
=Mrs. Burnett's
famous
Juveniles=
=With all the original
Illustrations by Reginald B. Birch.
5 vols. Each 12mo $1.25.=
A writer in the _Boston Post_ has said of Mrs. Burnett: "She has a
beauty of imagination and a spiritual insight into the meditations of
childhood which are within the grasp of no other writer for
children,"--and these five volumes would indeed be difficult to match in
child literature. The new edition is from new plates, with all the
original illustrations by Reginald B. Birch, is bound in a handsome new
cover. "Little Lord Fauntleroy," "Two Little Pilgrims' Progress,"
"Piccino and Other Child Stories," "Giovanni and the Other," "Sara
Crewe," and "Little Saint Elizabeth and other Stories" (in one volume).
=Three New
Volumes by
G. A. Henty=
=Illustrated by Walter
Paget and W. A. Margetson.
Each 12mo $1.50=.
It would be a bitter year for the boys if Mr. Henty were to fail them
with a fresh assortment of his enthralling tales of adventure, for, as
the London _Academy_ has said, in this kind of story telling, "he stands
in the very first rank." "With Frederick the Great" is a tale of the
Seven Years' War, and has twelve full-page illustrations by Wal. Paget;
"A March on London" details some stirring scenes of the times when Wat
Tyler's motley crew took possession of that city, and the illustrations
are drawn by W. A. Margetson, while Wal. Paget has supplied the pictures
for "With Moore at Corunna," in which the boy hero serves through the
Peninsular War. (Each 12mo, $1.50.)
=Will Shakespeare's
Little Lad
by Imogen Clarke=
=With 8 full-page Illustrations
by Reginald B. Birch.
12mo $1.50.=
"The author has caught the true spirit of Shakespeare's time, and paints
his home surroundings with a loving, tender grace," says the Boston
_Herald_.
=An Old-Field School Girl by Marion Harland=
(Illustrated, 12mo, $1.25.) "As pretty a story for girls as has been
published in a long time," says the _Buffalo Express_, and the _Chicago
Tribune_ is even more appreciative: "Compared with the average books of
its class 'An Old-Field School Girl,' becomes a classic."
=Lullaby Land=
=Verses by Eugene Field
With 200 fanciful
Illustrations by Charles Robinson.
(Uniform with Stevenson's
"A Child's Garden") 12mo $1.50.=
"A collection of those dearly loved 'Songs of Childhood' by Eugene
Field, which have touched many hearts, both old and young, and will
continue to do so as long as little children remain the joy of our
homes. It was a happy thought of the publisher to choose another such
child lover and sympathizer as Kenneth Grahame to write the Preface to
the new edition, and Charles Robinson to make the many quaint and most
amusing illustrations."--_The Evangelist._
=With Crockett
and Bowie by
Kirk Munroe=
=With 8 full-page
Illustrations by Victor S. Perard.
12mo $1.50.=
This "Tale of Texas; or, Fighting for the Lone Star Flag," completes the
author's _White Conqueror Series_. The Minneapolis _Tribune_ says: "It
is a breezy and invigorating tale. The characters, although drawn from
real life, are surrounded by an atmosphere of romance and adventure
which gives them the added fascination of being creatures of fiction,
and yet there is no straining for effect."
=The Naval
Cadet=
=With 6 full-page Illustrations
by William Rainey, R. I.
Crown 8vo $1.25.=
A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea, by GORDON STABLES. A stirring tale
of seafaring and sea-fighting on the coasts of Africa, South America,
Australia, New Guinea, etc., closing with a dramatic picture of the
combat between the Chinese and Japanese fleets at Yalu.
=The Stevenson
Song Book=
=With decorative borders.
4to $2.00.=
In this large and handsome quarto, twenty of the most lyrical poems from
Robert Louis Stevenson's "Child's Garden of Verse", have been set to
music by such composers as Reginald DeKoven, Arthur Foote, C. W.
Chadwick, Dr. C. Villers Stanford, etc. The volume is uniform with and a
fitting companion to the popular "Field-De-Koven Song Book."
=Twelve Naval
Captains by
Molly Elliot Seawell=
=With 12 full-page portraits.
12mo $1.25.=
Miss Seawell here tells the notable exploits of twelve heroes of our
early navy: John Paul Jones, Richard Dale, William Bainbridge, Richard
Somers, Edward Preble, Thomas Truxton, Stephen Decatur, James Lawrance,
Isaac Hull, O. H. Perry, Charles Stewart, Thomas Macdonough. The book is
illustrated attractively and makes a stirring and thrilling volume.
=The Knights
of the Round
Table=
=With 25 Illustrations
by S. R. Benliegh.
12mo $1.50.=
"King Arthur's Knights and their connection with the mystic Grail is
here the subject of Mr. William Henry Frost's translation into child
language. Many volumes have been prepared telling these wonderful
legendary stories to young people, but few are so admirably written as
this work," says the _Boston Advertiser_.
=The Last
Cruise of the
Mohawk by
W. J. Henderson=
=Illustrated by
Harry C. Edwards.
12mo $1.25.=
The _Observer_ says: "This is an exciting story that boys of today will
appreciate thoroughly and devour greedily," and the _Rochester Democrat_
calls it "an interesting and thrilling story."
=The King of
the Broncos
by Charles
F. Lummis=
=Illustrated by
Victor S. Perard.
12mo $1.25.=
The title story and the other Tales of New Mexico, which Mr. Lummis has
here supplied for the younger generation, have all his usual
fascination. He knows how to tell his thrilling stories in a way that is
irresistible? to boy readers.
=The Border
Wars of
New England=
=With 58 Illustrations and map.
12mo $1.25.=
Mr. Samuel Adams Drake is an expert at making history real and vital to
children. The _Boston Advertiser_ says: "This is not a school book, yet
it is exceedingly well adapted to use in schools, and at the same time
will enrich and adorn the library of every American who is so fortunate
or so judicious as to place it on his shelves."
=The Golden
Galleon by
Robert
Leighton=
=With 8 full-page Illustrations
by William Rainey, R. I.
12mo $1.50.=
"A narrative of the adventures of Master Gilbert O'Glander, and of how
in the year 1591 he fought under the gallant Sir Richard Grenville in
the great sea-fight off Flores, on board Her Majesty's ship, _The
Revenge_." The New York _Observer_ has said: "Mr. Leighton as a writer
for boys needs no praise as his books place him in the front rank."
=Lords of the
World=
=With 12 full-page
Illustrations by Ralph Peacock.
12mo. $1.00.=
A Story of the Fall of Carthage and Corinth. By ALFRED J. CHURCH. In his
own special field the author has few rivals. He has a capacity for
making antiquity assume reality which is fascinating in the extreme.
=Adventures in
Toyland=
=With 8 colored plates and 72 other
Illustrations by Alice B. Woodward.
Square 8vo. $2.00.=
By EDITH KING HALL. A clever and fascinating volume which will surely
take a high place among this season's "juveniles."
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 153-157 Fifth Ave, N.Y.
[Illustration: "THE HEIR TO FAIRY-LAND" FROM A WATER-COLOUR BY ROBERT
HALLS]
THE INTERNATIONAL
STUDIO
SPECIAL WINTER-NUMBER 1897-8
CHILDREN'S BOOKS AND THEIR ILLUSTRATORS. BY GLEESON WHITE.
[Illustration: THE "MONKEY-BOOK" A FAVOURITE IN THE NURSERY
(_By permission of James H. Stone, Esq., J.P._)]
There are some themes that by their very wealth of suggestion appal the
most ready writer. The emotions which they arouse, the mass of pleasant
anecdote they recall, the ghosts of far-off delights they summon, are
either too obvious to be worth the trouble of description or too
evanescent to be expressed in dull prose. Swift, we are told (perhaps a
little too frequently), could write beautifully of a broomstick; which
may strike a common person as a marvel of dexterity. After a while, the
journalist is apt to find that it is the perfect theme which proves to
be the hardest to treat adequately. Clothe a broomstick with fancies,
even of the flimsiest tissue paper, and you get something more or less
like a fairy-king's sceptre; but take the Pompadour's fan, or the
haunting effect of twilight over the meadows, and all you can do in
words seems but to hide its original beauties. We know that Mr. Austin
Dobson was able to add graceful wreaths even to the fan of the
Pompadour, and that another writer is able to impart to the misty
twilight not only the eerie fantasies it shows the careless observer,
but also a host of others that only a poet feels, and that only a poet
knows how to prison within his cage of printed syllables. Indeed, of the
theme of the present discourse has not the wonder-working Robert Louis
Stevenson sung of "Picture Books in Winter" and "The Land of Story
Books," so truly and clearly that it is dangerous for lesser folk to
attempt essays in their praise? All that artists have done to amuse the
august monarch "King Baby" (who, pictured by Mr. Robert Halls, is fitly
enthroned here by way of frontispiece) during the playtime of his
immaturity is too big a subject for our space, and can but be indicated
in rough outline here.
[Illustration: "ROBINSON CRUSOE." THE WRECK FROM AN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY
CHAP-BOOK]
Luckily, a serious study of the evolution of the child's book already
exists. Since the bulk of this number was in type, I lighted by chance
upon "The Child and his Book," by Mrs. E. M. Field, a most admirable
volume which traces its subject from times before the Norman conquest to
this century. Therein we find full accounts of MSS. designed for
teaching purposes, of early printed manuals, and of the mass of
literature intended to impress "the Fear of the Lord and of the
Broomstick." Did space allow, the present chronicle might be enlivened
with many an excerpt which she has culled from out-of-the-way sources.
But the temptation to quote must be controlled. It is only fair to add
that in that work there is a very excellent chapter to "Some
Illustrators of Children's Books," although its main purpose is the text
of the books. One branch has found its specialist and its exhaustive
monograph, in Mr. Andrew Tuer's sumptuous volumes devoted to "The Horn
Book."
[Illustration: "CRUSOE AND XURY ESCAPING" FROM AN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY
CHAP-BOOK]
Perhaps there is no pleasure the modern "grown-up" person envies the
youngsters of the hour as he envies them the shoals of delightful books
which publishers prepare for the Christmas tables of lucky children. If
he be old enough to remember Mrs. Trimmer's "History of the Robins,"
"The Fairchild Family," or that Poly-technically inspired romance, the
"Swiss Family Robinson," he feels that a certain half-hearted approval
of more dreary volumes is possibly due to the glamour which middle age
casts upon the past. It is said that even Barbauld's "Evenings at Home"
and "Sandford and Merton" (the anecdotes only, I imagine) have been
found toothsome dainties by unjaded youthful appetites; but when he
compares these with the books of the last twenty years, he wishes he
could become a child again to enjoy their sweets to the full.
[Illustration: _"CRUSOE SETS SAIL ON HIS EVENTFUL VOYAGE" FROM AN
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CHAP-BOOK_]
Now nine-tenths of this improvement is due to artist and publisher;
although it is obvious that illustrations imply something to illustrate,
and, as a rule (not by any means without exception), the better the text
the better the pictures. Years before good picture-books there were good
stories, and these, whether they be the classics of the nursery, the
laureates of its rhyme, the unknown author of its sagas, the born
story-tellers--whether they date from prehistoric cave-dwellers, or are
of our own age, like Charles Kingsley or Lewis Carroll--supply the text
to spur on the artist to his best achievements.
[Illustration: "THE TRUE TALE OF ROBIN HOOD." FROM AN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY
CHAP-BOOK]
It is mainly a labour of love to infuse pictures intended for childish
eyes with qualities that pertain to art. We like to believe that Walter
Crane, Caldecott, Kate Greenaway and the rest receive ample appreciation
from the small people. That they do in some cases is certain; but it is
also quite as evident that the veriest daub, if its subject be
attractive, is enjoyed no less thoroughly. There are prigs of course,
the children of the "prignorant," who babble of Botticelli, and profess
to disdain any picture not conceived with "high art" mannerism. Yet even
these will forget their pretence, and roar over a _Comic Cuts_ found on
the seat of a railway carriage, or stand delighted before some
unspeakable poster of a melodrama. It is well to face the plain fact
that the most popular illustrated books which please the children are
not always those which satisfy the critical adult. As a rule it is the
"grown-ups" who buy; therefore with no wish to be-little the advance in
nursery taste, one must own that at present its improvement is chiefly
owing to the active energies of those who give, and is only passively
tolerated by those who accept. Children awaking to the marvel that
recreates a familiar object by a few lines and blotches on a piece of
paper, are not unduly exigent. Their own primitive diagrams, like a
badly drawn Euclidean problem, satisfy their idea of studies from the
life. Their schemes of colour are limited to harmonies in crimson lake,
cobalt and gamboge, their skies are very blue, their grass arsenically
green, and their perspective as erratic as that of the Chinese.
[Illustration: "TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOOD." FROM AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
CHAP-BOOK]
[Illustration: "SIR RICHARD WHITTINGTON." FROM AN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY
CHAP-BOOK]
In fact, unpopular though it may be to project such a theory, one
fancies that the real educational power of the picture-book is upon the
elders, and thus, that it undoubtedly helps to raise the standard of
domestic taste in art. But, on the other hand, whether his art is
adequately appreciated or not, what an unprejudiced and wholly
spontaneous acclaim awaits the artist who gives his best to the little
ones! They do not place his work in portfolios or locked glass cases;
they thumb it to death, surely the happiest of all fates for any printed
book. To see his volumes worn out by too eager votaries; what could an
author or artist wish for more? The extraordinary devotion to a volume
of natural history, which after generations of use has become more like
a mop-head than a book, may be seen in the reproduction of a
"monkey-book" here illustrated; this curious result being caused by
sheer affectionate thumbing of its leaves, until the dog-ears and
rumpled pages turned the cube to a globular mass, since flattened by
being packed away. So children love picture-books, not as bibliophiles
would consider wisely, but too well.
[Illustration: "AN AMERICAN MAN AND WOMAN IN THEIR PROPER HABITS."
ILLUSTRATION FROM "A MUSEUM FOR YOUNG GENTLEMEN AND LADIES" (S. CROWDER.
1790)]
To delight one of the least of these, to add a new joy to the crowded
miracles of childhood, were no less worth doing than to leave a Sistine
Chapel to astound a somewhat bored procession of tourists, or to have
written a classic that sells by thousands and is possessed unread by all
save an infinitesimal percentage of its owners.
When Randolph Caldecott died, a minor poet, unconsciously paraphrasing
Garrick's epitaph, wrote: "For loss of him the laughter of the children
will grow less." I quote the line from memory, perhaps incorrectly; if
so, its author will, I feel sure, forgive the unintentional mangling.
Did the laughter of the children grow less? Happily one can be quite
sure it did not. So long as any inept draughtsman can scrawl a few lines
which they accept as a symbol of an engine, an elephant or a pussy cat,
so long will the great army of invaders who are our predestined
conquerors be content to laugh anew at the request of any one, be he
good or mediocre, who caters for them.
It is a pleasant and yet a saddening thought to remember that we were
once recruits of this omnipotent army that wins always our lands and our
treasures. Now, when grown up, whether we are millionaires or paupers,
they have taken fortress by fortress with the treasures therein, our
picture-books of one sort are theirs, and one must yield presently to
the babies as they grow up, even our criticism, for they will make their
own standards of worth and unworthiness despite all our efforts to
control their verdict.
If we are conscious of being "up-to-date" in 1900, we may be quite sure
that by 1925 we shall be ousted by a newer generation, and by 2000
forgotten. Long before even that, the children we now try to amuse or to
educate, to defend at all costs, or to pray for as we never prayed
before--they will be the masters. It is, then, not an ignoble thing to
do one's very best to give our coming rulers a taste of the kingdom of
art, to let them unconsciously discover that there is something outside
common facts, intangible and not to be reduced to any rule, which may be
a lasting pleasure to those who care to study it.
It is evident, as one glances back over the centuries, that the child
occupies a new place in the world to-day. Excepting possibly certain
royal infants, we do not find that great artists of the past addressed
themselves to children. Are there any children's books illustrated by
Duerer, Burgmair, Altdorfer, Jost Amman, or the little masters of
Germany? Among the Florentine woodcuts do we find any designed for
children? Did Rembrandt etch for them, or Jacob Beham prepare plates for
their amusement? So far as I have searched, no single instance has
rewarded me. It is true that the _naivete_ of much early work tempts
one to believe that it was designed for babies. But the context shows
that it was the unlettered adult, not the juvenile, who was addressed.
As the designs, obviously prepared for children, begin to appear, they
are almost entirely educational and by no means the work of the best
artists of the period. Even when they come to be numerous, their object
is seldom to amuse; they are didactic, and as a rule convey solemn
warnings. The idea of a draughtsman of note setting himself deliberately
to please a child would have been inconceivable not so many years ago.
To be seen and not heard was the utmost demanded of the little ones even
as late as the beginning of this century, when illustrated books
designed especially for their instruction were not infrequent.
[Illustration: "THE WALLS OF BABYLON." ILLUSTRATION FROM "A MUSEUM FOR
YOUNG GENTLEMEN AND LADIES" (S. CROWDER. 1790)]
As Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton pointed out in his charming essay, "The New
Hero," which appeared in the _English Illustrated Magazine_ (Dec. 1883),
the child was neglected even by the art of literature until Shakespeare
furnished portraits at once vivid, engaging, and true in Arthur and in
Mamillus. In the same essay he goes on to say of the child--the new
hero:
"And in art, painters and designers are vying with the poets and with
each other in accommodating their work to his well-known matter-of-fact
tastes and love of simple directness. Having discovered that the New
Hero's ideal of pictorial representation is of that high dramatic and
businesslike kind exemplified in the Bayeux tapestry, Mr. Caldecott, Mr.
Walter Crane, Miss Kate Greenaway, Miss Dorothy Tennant, have each tried
to surpass the other in appealing to the New Hero's love of real
business in art--treating him, indeed, as though he were Hotei, the
Japanese god of enjoyment--giving him as much colour, as much dramatic
action, and as little perspective as is possible to man's finite
capacity in this line. Some generous art critics have even gone so far
indeed as to credit an entire artistic movement, that of pre-Raphaelism,
with a benevolent desire to accommodate art to the New Hero's peculiar
ideas upon perspective. But this is a 'soft impeachment' born of that
loving kindness for which art-critics have always been famous."
[Illustration: "MERCURY AND THE WOODMAN." ILLUSTRATION FROM "BEWICK'S
SELECT FABLES." BY THOMAS BEWICK (1784)]
[Illustration: "THE BROTHER AND SISTER." ILLUSTRATION FROM "BEWICK'S
SELECT FABLES." BY THOMAS BEWICK (1784)]
[Illustration: "LITTLE ANTHONY." ILLUSTRATION FROM "THE LOOKING-GLASS OF
THE MIND." BY THOMAS BEWICK (1792)]
[Illustration: "LITTLE ADOLPHUS." ILLUSTRATION FROM "THE LOOKING-GLASS
OF THE MIND." BY THOMAS BEWICK (1792)]
It would be out of place here to project any theory to account for this
more recent homage paid to children, but it is quite certain that a
similar number of THE STUDIO could scarce have been compiled a century
ago, for there was practically no material for it. In fact the tastes of
children as a factor to be considered in life are well-nigh as modern as
steam or the electric light, and far less ancient than printing with
movable types, which of itself seems the second great event in the
history of humanity, the use of fire being the first.
To leave generalities and come to particulars, as we dip into the stores
of earlier centuries the broadsheets reveal almost nothing _intended_
for children--the many Robin Hood ballads, for example, are decidedly
meant for grown-up people; and so in the eighteenth century we find its
chap-books of "Guy, Earl of Warwick," "Sir Bevis, of Southampton,"
"Valentine and Orson," are still addressed to the adult; while it is
more than doubtful whether even the earliest editions in chap-book form
of "Tom Thumb," and "Whittington" and the rest, now the property of the
nursery, were really published for little ones. That they were the
"light reading" of adults, the equivalent of to-day's _Ally Sloper_ or
the penny dreadful, is much more probable. No doubt children who came
across them had a surreptitious treat, even as urchins of both sexes now
pounce with avidity upon stray copies of the ultra-popular and so-called
comic papers. But you could not call _Ally Sloper_, that Punchinello of
the Victorian era--who has received the honour of an elaborate article
in the _Nineteenth Century_--a child's hero, nor is his humour of a sort
always that childhood should understand--"Unsweetened Gin," the
"Broker's Man," and similar subjects, for example. It is quite possible
that respectable people did not care for their babies to read the
chap-books of the eighteenth century any more than they like them now to
study "halfpenny comics"; and that they were, in short, kitchen
literature, and not infantile. Even if the intellectual standard of
those days was on a par in both domains, it does not prove that the
reading of the kitchen and nursery was interchangeable.
Before noticing any pictures in detail from old sources or new, it is
well to explain that as a rule only those showing some attempt to adapt
the drawing to a child's taste have been selected. Mere dull transcripts
of facts please children no less; but here space forbids their
inclusion. Otherwise nearly all modern illustration would come into our
scope.
A search through the famous Roxburghe collection of broadsheets
discovered nothing that could be fairly regarded as a child's
publication. The chap-books of the eighteenth century have been
adequately discussed in Mr. John Ashton's admirable monograph, and from
them a few "cuts" are here reproduced. Of course, if one takes the
standard of education of these days as the test, many of those curious
publications would appear to be addressed to intelligence of the most
juvenile sort. Yet the themes as a rule show unmistakably that children
of a larger growth were catered for, as, for instance, "Joseph and his
Brethren," "The Holy Disciple," "The Wandering Jew," and those earlier
pamphlets which are reprints or new versions of books printed by Wynkyn
de Worde, Pynson, and others of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth
centuries.
[Illustration: _Henry quitting School._
ILLUSTRATION FROM "SKETCHES OF JUVENILE CHARACTERS" (E. WALLIS. 1818)]
In one, "The Witch of the Woodlands," appears a picture of little people
dancing in a fairy ring, which might be supposed at first sight to be an
illustration of a nursery tale, but the text describing a Witch's
Sabbath, rapidly dispels the idea. Nor does a version of the popular
Faust legend--"Dr. John Faustus"--appear to be edifying for young
people. This and "Friar Bacon" are of the class which lingered the
longest--the magical and oracular literature. Even to-day it is quite
possible that dream-books and prophetical pamphlets enjoy a large sale;
but a few years ago many were to be found in the catalogues of
publishers who catered for the million. It is not very long ago that the
Company of Stationers omitted hieroglyphics of coming events from its
almanacs. Many fairy stories which to-day are repeated for the amusement
of children were regarded as part of this literature--the traditional
folk-lore which often enough survives many changes of the religious
faith of a nation, and outlasts much civilisation. Others were
originally political satires, or social pasquinades; indeed not a few
nursery rhymes mask allusions to important historical incidents. The
chap-book form of publication is well adapted for the preservation of
half-discredited beliefs, of charms and prophecies, incantations and
cures.
In "Valentine and Orson," of which a fragment is extant of a version
printed by Wynkyn de Worde, we have unquestionably the real fairy story.
This class of story, however, was not addressed directly to children
until within the last hundred years. That many of the cuts used in these
chap-books afterwards found their way into little coarsely printed
duodecimos of eight or sixteen pages designed for children is no doubt a
fact. Indeed the wanderings of these blocks, and the various uses to
which they were applied, is far too vast a theme to touch upon here. For
this peripatetic habit of old wood-cuts was not even confined to the
land of their production; after doing duty in one country, they were
ready for fresh service in another. Often in the chap-books we meet with
the same block as an illustration of totally different scenes.
[Illustration: TITLE-PAGE OF "THE PATHS OF LEARNING" (HARRIS AND SON.
1820)]
[Illustration: PAGE FROM "THE PATHS OF LEARNING" (HARRIS AND SON. 1820)]
The cut for the title-page of Robin Hood is a fair example of its kind.
The Norfolk gentleman's "Last Will and Testament" turns out to be a
rambling rhymed version of the Two Children in the Wood. In the first of
its illustrations we see the dying parents commending their babes to the
cruel world. The next is a subject taken from these lines:
"Away then went these prity babes rejoycing at that tide,
Rejoycing with a merry mind they should on cock-horse ride."
And in the last, here reproduced, we see them when
"Their prity lips with blackberries were all besmeared and dyed,
And when they saw the darksome night, they sat them down and cried."
But here it is more probable that it was the tragedy which attracted
readers, as the _Police News_ attracts to-day, and that it became a
child's favourite by the accident of the robins burying the babes.
The example from the "History of Sir Richard Whittington" needs no
comment.
A very condensed version of "Robinson Crusoe" has blocks of distinct, if
archaic, interest. The three here given show a certain sense of
decorative treatment (probably the result of the artist's inability to
be realistic), which is distinctly amusing. One might select hundreds of
woodcuts of this type, but those here reproduced will serve as well as a
thousand to indicate their general style.
Some few of these books have contributed to later nursery folk-lore, as,
for example, the well known "Jack Horner," which is an extract from a
coarse account of the adventures of a dwarf.
One quality that is shared by all these earlier pictures is their
artlessness and often their absolute ugliness. Quaint is the highest
adjective that fits them. In books of the later period not a few blocks
of earlier date and of really fine design reappear; but in the
chap-books quite 'prentice hands would seem to have been employed, and
the result therefore is only interesting for its age and rarity. So far
these pictures need no comment, they foreshadow nothing and are derived
from nothing, so far as their design is concerned. Such interest as they
have is quite unconcerned with art in any way; they are not even
sufficiently misdirected to act as warnings, but are merely clumsy.
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM "GERMAN POPULAR STORIES." BY G.
CRUIKSHANK (CHARLES TILT. 1824)]
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM "GERMAN POPULAR STORIES." BY G.
CRUIKSHANK (CHARLES TILT. 1824)]
Children's books, as every collector knows, are among the most
short-lived of all volumes. This is more especially true of those with
illustrations, for their extra attractiveness serves but to degrade a
comely book into a dog-eared and untidy thing, with leaves sere and
yellow, and with no autumnal grace to mellow their decay. Long before
this period, however, the nursery artist has marked them for his own,
and with crimson lake and Prussian blue stained their pictures in all
too permanent pigments, that in some cases resist every chemical the
amateur applies with the vain hope of effacing the superfluous colour.
Of course the disappearance of the vast majority of books for children
(dating from 1760 to 1830, and even later) is no loss to art, although
among them are some few which are interesting as the 'prentice work of
illustrators who became famous. But these are the exceptions. Thanks to
the kindness of Mr. James Stone, of Birmingham, who has a large and most
interesting collection of the most ephemeral of all sorts--the little
penny and twopenny pamphlets--it has been possible to refer at first
hand to hundreds, of them. Yet, despite their interest as curiosities,
their art need not detain us here. The pictures are mostly trivial or
dull, and look like the products of very poorly equipped draughtsmen and
cheap engravers. Some, in pamphlet shape, contain nursery rhymes and
little stories, others are devoted to the alphabet and arithmetic.
Amongst them are many printed on card, shaped like the cover of a
bank-book. These were called battledores, but as Mr. Tuer has dealt with
this class in "The Horn Book" so thoroughly, it would be mere waste of
time to discuss them here.
Mr. Elkin Mathews also permitted me to run through his interesting
collection, and among them were many noted elsewhere in these pages, but
the rest, so far as the pictures are concerned, do not call for detailed
notice. They do, indeed, contain pictures of children--but mere
"factual" scenes, as a rule--without any real fun or real imagination.
Those who wish to look up early examples will find a large and
entertaining variety among "The Pearson Collection" in the National Art
Library at South Kensington Museum.
Turning to quite another class, we find "A Museum for Young Gentlemen
and Ladies" (Collins: Salisbury), a typical volume of its kind. Its
preface begins: "I am very much concerned when I see young gentlemen of
fortune and quality so wholly set upon pleasure and diversions.... The
greater part of our British youth lose their figure and grow out of
fashion by the time they are twenty-five. As soon as the natural gaiety
and amiableness of the young man wears off they have nothing left to
recommend, but _lie by_ the rest of their lives among the lumber and
refuse of their species"--a promising start for a moral lecture, which
goes on to implore those who are in the flower of their youth to "labour
at those accomplishments which may set off their persons when their
bloom is gone."
The compensations for old age appear to be, according to this author, a
little knowledge of grammar, history, astronomy, geography, weights and
measures, the seven wonders of the world, burning mountains, and dying
words of great men. But its delightful text must not detain us here. A
series of "cuts" of national costumes with which it is embellished
deserves to be described in detail. _An American Man and Woman in their
proper habits_, reproduced on page 6, will give a better idea of their
style than any words. The blocks evidently date many years earlier than
the thirteenth edition here referred to, which is about 1790. Indeed,
those of the Seven Wonders are distinctly interesting.
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM "THE LITTLE PRINCESS." BY J. C.
HORSLEY, R.A. (JOSEPH CUNDALL. 1843)]
[Illustration:
I had a little Nut-tree,
Nothing would it bear,
But a silver nutmeg
And a golden pear.
The King of Spain's daughter, came to visit me,--
And all because of my little Nut-tree.
ILLUSTRATION FROM "CHILD'S PLAY." BY E. V. B. (NOW PUBLISHED BY SAMPSON
LOW)]
Here and there we meet with one interesting as art. "An Ancestral
History of King Arthur" (H. Roberts, Blue Boar, Holborn, 1782), shown in
the Pearson collection at South Kensington, has an admirable
frontispiece; and one or two others would be worth reproduction did
space permit.
Although the dates overlap, the next division of the subject may be
taken as ranging from the publication of "Goody Two Shoes--otherwise
called Mrs. Margaret Two-shoes"--to the "Bewick Books." Of the latter
the most interesting is unquestionably "A Pretty Book of Pictures for
Little Masters and Misses, or Tommy Trip's History of Beasts and Birds,"
with a familiar description of each in verse and prose, to which is
prefixed "A History of Little Tom Trip himself, of his dog Towler, and
of Coryleg the great giant," written for John Newbery, the philanthropic
bookseller of St. Paul's Churchyard. "The fifteenth edition embellished
with charming engravings upon wood, from the original blocks engraved by
Thomas Bewick for T. Saint of Newcastle in 1779"--to quote the full
title from the edition reprinted by Edwin Pearson in 1867. This edition
contains a preface tracing the history of the blocks, which are said to
be Bewick's first efforts to depict beasts and birds, undertaken at the
request of the New castle printer, to illustrate a new edition of
"Tommy Trip." As at this time copyright was unknown, and Newcastle or
Glasgow pirated a London success (as New York did but lately), we must
not be surprised to find that the text is said to be a reprint of a
"Newbery" publication. But as Saint was called the Newbery of the North,
possibly the Bewick edition was authorised. One or two of the rhymes
which have been attributed to Oliver Goldsmith deserve quotation.
Appended to a cut of _The Bison_ we find the following delightful lines:
"The Bison, tho' neither
Engaging nor young,
Like a flatt'rer can lick you
To death with his tongue."
The astounding legend of the bison's long tongue, with which he captures
a man who has ventured too close, is dilated upon in the accompanying
prose. That Goldsmith used "teeth" when he meant "tusks" solely for the
sake of rhyme is a depressing fact made clear by the next verse:
"The elephant with trunk and teeth
Threatens his foe with instant death,
And should these not his ends avail
His crushing feet will seldom fail."
Nor are the rhymes as they stand peculiarly happy; certainly in the
following example it requires an effort to make "throw" and "now" pair
off harmoniously.
"The fierce, fell tiger will, they say,
Seize any man that's in the way,
And o'er his back the victim throw,
As you your satchel may do now."
Yet one more deserves to be remembered if but for its decorative
spelling:
"The cuccoo comes to chear the spring,
And early every morn does sing;
The nightingale, secure and snug,
The evening charms with Jug, jug, jug."
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM "THE HONEY STEW" BY HARRISON WEIR
(JEREMIAH HOW. 1846)]
But these doggerel rhymes are not quite representative of the book, as
the well-known "Three children sliding on the ice upon a summer's day"
appears herein. The "cuts" are distinctively notable, especially the
Crocodile (which contradicts the letterpress, that says "it turns about
with difficulty"), the Chameleon, the Bison, and the Tiger.
Bewick's "Select Fables of AEsop and others" (Newcastle: T. Saint, 1784)
deserves fuller notice, but AEsop, though a not unpopular book for
children, is hardly a children's book. With "The Looking Glass for the
Mind" (1792) we have the adaptation of a popular French work, "L'Ami des
Enfans" (1749), with cuts by Bewick, which, if not equal to his best,
are more interesting from our point of view, as they are obviously
designed for young people. The letterpress is full of "useful lessons
for my youthful readers," with morals provokingly insisted upon.
"Goody Two Shoes" was also published by Newbery of St. Paul's
Churchyard--the pioneer of children's literature. His business--which
afterwards became Messrs. Griffith and Farran--has been the subject of
several monographs and magazine articles by Mr. Charles Welsh, a former
partner of that firm. The two monographs were privately printed for
issue to members of the Sette of Odde Volumes. The first of these is
entitled "On some Books for Children of the last century, with a few
words on the philanthropic publisher of St. Paul's Churchyard. A paper
read at a meeting of the Sette of Odde Volumes, Friday, January 8,
1886." Herein we find a very sympathetic account of John Newbery and
gossip of the clever and distinguished men who assisted him in the
production of children's books, of which Charles Knight said, "There is
nothing more remarkable in them than their originality. There have been
attempts to imitate its simplicity, its homeliness; great authors have
tried their hands at imitating its clever adaptation to the youthful
intellect, but they have failed"--a verdict which, if true of authors
when Charles Knight uttered it, is hardly true of the present time.
After Goldsmith, Charles Lamb, to whom "Goody Two Shoes" is now
attributed, was, perhaps, the most famous contributor to Newbery's
publications; his "Beauty and the Beast" and "Prince Dorus" have been
republished in facsimile lately by Messrs. Field and Tuer. From the
_London Chronicle_, December 19 to January 1, 1765, Mr. Welsh reprinted
the following advertisement:
[Illustration: "BLUE BEARD." ILLUSTRATION FROM "COMIC NURSERY TALES." BY
A. CROWQUILL (G. ROUTLEDGE. 1845)]
[Illustration: "ROBINSON CRUSOE." ILLUSTRATION FROM "COMIC NURSERY
TALES." BY A. CROWQUILL (G. ROUTLEDGE. 1845)]
"The Philosophers, Politicians, Necromancers, and the learned in every
faculty are desired to observe that on January 1, being New Year's Day
(oh that we may all lead new lives!), Mr. Newbery intends to publish the
following important volumes, bound and gilt, and hereby invites all his
little friends who are good to call for them at the Bible and Sun in St.
Paul's Churchyard, but those who are naughty to have none." The paper
read by Mr. Welsh scarcely fulfils the whole promise of its title, for
in place of giving anecdotes of Newbery he refers his listeners to his
own volume, "A Bookseller of the Last Century," for fuller details; but
what he said in praise of the excellent printing and binding of
Newbery's books is well merited. They are, nearly all, comely
productions, some with really artistic illustrations, and all marked
with care and intelligence which had not hitherto been bestowed on
publications intended for juveniles. It is true that most are
distinguished for "calculating morality" as the _Athenaeum_ called it, in
re-estimating their merits nearly a century later. It was a period when
the advantages of dull moralising were over-prized, when people
professed to believe that you could admonish children to a state of
perfection which, in their didactic addresses to the small folk, they
professed to obey themselves. It was, not to put too fine a point on it,
an age of solemn hypocrisy, not perhaps so insincere in intention as in
phrase; but, all the same, it repels the more tolerant mood of to-day.
Whether or not it be wise to confess to the same frailties and let
children know the weaknesses of their elders, it is certainly more
honest; and the danger is now rather lest the undue humility of
experience should lead children to believe that they are better than
their fathers. Probably the honest sympathy now shown to childish ideals
is not likely to be misinterpreted, for children are often shrewd
judges, and can detect the false from the true, in morals if not in art.
By 1800 literature for children had become an established fact. Large
numbers of publications were ostentatiously addressed to their
amusement; but nearly all hid a bitter if wholesome powder in a very
small portion of jam. Books of educational purport, like "A Father's
Legacy to his Daughter," with reprints of classics that are heavily
weighted with morals--Dr. Johnson's "Rasselas" and "AEsop's Fables," for
instance--are in the majority. "Robinson Crusoe" is indeed among them,
and Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," both, be it noted, books annexed by
the young, not designed for them.
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM "ROBINSON CRUSOE." BY CHARLES KEENE
(JAMES BURNS. 1847)]
The titles of a few odd books which possess more than usually
interesting features may be jotted down. Of these, "Little Thumb and the
Ogre" (R. Dutton, 1788), with illustrations by William Blake, is easily
first in interest, if not in other respects. Others include "The Cries
of London" (1775), "Sindbad the Sailor" (Newbery, 1798), "Valentine and
Orson" (Mary Rhynd, Clerkenwell, 1804), "Fun at the Fair" (with spirited
cuts printed in red), and Watts's "Divine and Moral Songs," and "An
Abridged New Testament," with still more effective designs also in red
(Lumsden, Glasgow), "Gulliver's Travels" (greatly abridged, 1815),
"Mother Gum" (1805), "Anecdotes of a Little Family" (1795), "Mirth
without Mischief," "King Pippin," "The Daisy" (cautionary stories in
verse), and the "Cowslip," its companion (with delightfully prim little
rhymes that have been reprinted lately). The thirty illustrations in
each are by Samuel Williams, an artist who yet awaits his due
appreciation. A large number of classics of their kind, "The Adventures
of Philip Quarll," "Gulliver's Travels," Blake's "Songs of Innocence,"
Charles Lamb's "Stories from Shakespeare," Mrs. Sherwood's "Henry and
his Bearer," and a host of other religious stories, cannot even be
enumerated. But even were it possible to compile a full list of
children's books, it would be of little service, for the popular books
are in no danger of being forgotten, and the unpopular, as a rule, have
vanished out of existence, and except by pure accident could not be
found for love or money.
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM "COMIC NURSERY TALES" (G. ROUTLEDGE.
1846)]
With the publications of Newbery and Harris, early in the nineteenth
century, we encounter examples more nearly typical of the child's book
as we regard it to-day. Among them Harris's "Cabinet" is noticeable.
The first four volumes, "The Butterfly's Ball," "The Peacock at Home,"
"The Lion's Masquerade," and "The Elephant's Ball," were reprinted a few
years ago, with the original illustrations by Mulready carefully
reproduced. A coloured series of sixty-two books, priced at one shilling
and sixpence each (Harris), was extremely popular.
With the "Paths of Learning strewed with Flowers, or English Grammar
Illustrated" (1820), we encounter a work not without elegance. Its
designs, as we see by the examples reproduced on page 9, are the obvious
prototype of Miss Greenaway, the model that inspired her to those dainty
trifles which conquered even so stern a critic of modern illustration as
Mr. Ruskin. On its cover--a forbidding wrapper devoid of ornament--and
repeated within a wreath of roses inside, this preamble occurs: "The
purpose of this little book is to obviate the reluctance children evince
to the irksome and insipid task of learning the names and meanings of
the component parts of grammar. Our intention is to entwine roses with
instruction, and however humble our endeavour may appear, let it be
recollected that the efforts of a Mouse set the Lion free from his
toils." This oddly phrased explanation is typical of the affected
geniality of the governess. Indeed, it might have been penned by an
assistant to Miss Pinkerton, "the Semiramis of Hammersmith"; if not by
that friend of Dr. Johnson, the correspondent of Mrs. Chapone herself,
in a moment of gracious effort to bring her intellect down to the level
of her pupils.
To us, this hollow gaiety sounds almost cruel. In those days children
were always regarded as if, to quote Mark Twain, "every one being born
with an equal amount of original sin, the pressure on the square inch
must needs be greater in a baby." Poor little original sinners, how very
scurvily the world of books and picture-makers treated you less than a
century ago! Life for you then was a perpetual reformatory, a place
beset with penalties, and echoing with reproofs. Even the literature
planned to amuse your leisure was stuck full of maxims and morals; the
most piquant story was but a prelude to an awful warning; pictures of
animals, places, and rivers failed to conceal undisguised lessons. The
one impression that is left by a study of these books is the lack of
confidence in their own dignity which papas and mammas betrayed in the
early Victorian era. This seems past all doubt when you realise that the
common effort of all these pictures and prose is to glorify the
impeccable parent, and teach his or her offspring to grovel silently
before the stern law-givers who ruled the home.
[Illustration: TITLE-PAGE FROM "THE SCOURING OF THE WHITE HORSE." BY
RICHARD DOYLE (MACMILLAN AND CO. 1858)]
Of course it was not really so, literature had but lately come to a
great middle class who had not learned to be easy; and as worthy folk
who talked colloquially wrote in stilted parody of Dr. Johnson's stately
periods, so the uncouth address in print to the populace of the nursery
was doubtless forgotten in daily intercourse. But the conventions were
preserved, and honest fun or full-bodied romance that loves to depict
gnomes and hob-goblins, giants and dwarfs in a world of adventure and
mystery, was unpopular. Children's books were illustrated entirely by
the wonders of the creation, or the still greater wonders of so-called
polite society. Never in them, except introduced purposely as an "awful
example," do you meet an untidy, careless, normal child. Even the
beggars are prim, and the beasts and birds distinctly genteel in their
habits. Fairyland was shut to the little ones, who were turned out of
their own domain. It seems quite likely that this continued until the
German _maerchen_ (the literary products of Germany were much in favour
at this period) reopened the wonderland of the other world about the
time that Charles Dickens helped to throw the door still wider.
Discovering that the child possessed the right to be amused, the
imagination of poets and artists addressed itself at last to the most
appreciative of all audiences, a world of newcomers, with insatiable
appetites for wonders real and imaginary.
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION (REDUCED) FROM "MISUNDERSTOOD" BY GEORGE DU
MAURIER (RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON. 1874)]