peasants, or at least kept out of reach of children of the higher
classes. No doubt old nurses prattled it to their charges, perhaps
weak-minded mothers occasionally repeated the ancient legends, but the
printing-press set its face against fancy, and offered facts in its
stead. In the list of sixty-two books before mentioned, if we except a
few nursery jingles such as "Mother Hubbard" and "Cock Robin," we find
but two real fairy stories, "Cinderella," "Puss-in-Boots," and three
old-world narratives of adventure, "Whittington and His Cat," "The Seven
Champions of Christendom," and "Valentine and Orson." The rest are
"Peter Piper's Practical Principles of Plain and Perfect Pronunciation,"
"The Monthly Monitor," "Tommy Trip's Museum of Beasts," "The
Perambulations of a Mouse," and so on, with a few things like "The House
that Jack Built," and "A, Apple Pie," that are but daily facts put into
story shape. Now it is clear that the artists inspired by fifty of these
had no chance of displaying their imagination, and every opportunity of
pointing a moral; and it is painful to be obliged to own that they
succeeded beyond belief in their efforts to be dull. Of like sort are "A
Visit to the Bazaar" (Harris, 1814), and "The Dandies' Ball" (1820).
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM "THE PRINCESS AND THE GOBLIN."
(STRAHAN. 1871. NOW PUBLISHED BY BLACKIE AND SON)]
Nor must we forget a work very popular at this period, "Keeper in
Search of His Master," although its illustrations are not its chief
point.
According to a very interesting preface Mr. Andrew Tuer contributed to
"The Leadenhall Series of Reprints of Forgotten Books for Children in
1813," "Dame Wiggins of Lee" was first issued by A. K. Newman and Co. of
the Minerva Press. This book is perhaps better known than any of its
date owing to Mr. Ruskin's reprint with additional verses by himself,
and new designs by Miss Kate Greenaway supplementing the original cuts,
which were re-engraved in facsimile by Mr. Hooper. Mr. Tuer attributes
the design of these latter to R. Stennet (or Sinnet?), who illustrated
also "Deborah Dent and her Donkey" and "Madame Figs' Gala." Newman
issued many of these books, in conjunction with Messrs. Dean and Mundy,
the direct ancestors of the firm of Dean and Son, still flourishing, and
still engaged in providing cheap and attractive books for children. "The
Gaping Wide-mouthed Waddling Frog" is another book of about this period,
which Mr. Tuer included in his reprints. Among the many illustrated
volumes which bear the imprint of A. K. Newman, and Dean and Mundy, are
"A, Apple Pie," "Aldiborontiphoskyphorniostikos," "The House that Jack
Built," "The Parent's Offering for a Good Child" (a very pompous and
irritating series of dialogues), and others that are even more directly
educational. In all these the engravings are in fairly correct outline,
coloured with four to six washes of showy crimson lake, ultramarine,
pale green, pale sepia, and gamboge.
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM "GUTTA PERCHA WILLIE." BY ARTHUR HUGHES
(STRAHAN. 1870. NOW PUBLISHED BY BLACKIE AND SON)]
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM "AT THE BACK OF THE NORTH WIND." BY
ARTHUR HUGHES (STRAHAN. 1869. NOW PUBLISHED BY BLACKIE AND SON)]
Even the dreary text need not have made the illustrators quite so dull,
as we know that Randolph Caldecott would have made an illustrated
"Bradshaw" amusing; but most of his earlier predecessors show no less
power in making anything they touched "un-funny." Nor as art do their
pictures interest you any more than as anecdotes.
Of course the cost of coloured engravings prohibited their lavish use.
All were tinted by hand, sometimes with the help of stencil plates, but
more often by brush. The print colourers, we are told, lived chiefly in
the Pentonville district, or in some of the poorer streets near
Leicester Square. A few survivors are still to be found; but the
introduction first of lithography, and later of photographic processes,
has killed the industry, and even the most fanatical apostle of the old
crafts cannot wish the "hand-painter" back again. The outlines were
either cut on wood, as in the early days of printing until the present,
or else engraved on metal. In each case all colour was painted
afterwards, and in scarce a single instance (not even in the Rowlandson
caricatures or patriotic pieces) is there any attempt to obtain an
harmonious scheme such as is often found in the tinted mezzo-tints of
the same period.
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM "AT THE BACK OF THE NORTH WIND." BY
ARTHUR HUGHES (STRAHAN. 1869. NOW PUBLISHED BY BLACKIE AND SON)]
Of works primarily intended for little people, an "Hieroglyphical Bible"
for the amusement and instruction of the younger generation (1814) may
be noted. This was a mixture of picture-puns and broken words, after the
fashion of the dreary puzzles still published in snippet weeklies. It is
a melancholy attempt to turn Bible texts to picture puzzles, a book
permitted by the unco' guid to children on wet Sunday afternoons, as
some younger members of large families, whose elder brothers' books yet
lingered forty or even fifty years after publication, are able to
endorse with vivid and depressed remembrance. Foxe's "Book of Martyrs"
and Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" are of the same type, and calculated
to fill a nervous child with grim terrors, not lightened by Watts's
"Divine and Moral Songs," that gloated on the dreadful hell to which
sinful children were doomed, "with devils in darkness, fire and chains."
But this painful side of the subject is not to be discussed here.
Luckily the artists--except in the "grown-up" books referred
to--disdained to enforce the terrors of Dr. Watts, and pictured less
horrible themes.
With Cruikshank we encounter almost the first glimpse of the modern
ideal. His "Grimm's Fairy Tales" are delightful in themselves, and
marvellous in comparison with all before, and no little after.
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM "THE LITTLE WONDER HORN." BY J. MAHONEY
(H. S. KING AND CO. 1872. GRIFFITH AND FARRAN. 1887)]
These famous illustrations to the first selection of Grimm's "German
Popular Stories" appeared in 1824, followed by a second series in 1826.
Coming across this work after many days spent in hunting up children's
books of the period, the designs flashed upon one as masterpieces, and
for the first time seemed to justify the great popularity of Cruikshank.
For their vigour and brilliant invention, their _diablerie_ and true
local colour, are amazing when contrasted with what had been previously.
Wearied of the excessive eulogy bestowed upon Cruikshank's illustrations
to Dickens, and unable to accept the artist as an illustrator of real
characters in fiction, when he studies his elfish and other-worldly
personages, the most grudging critic must needs yield a full tribute of
praise. The volumes (published by Charles Tilt, of 82 Fleet Street) are
extremely rare; for many years past the sale-room has recorded fancy
prices for all Cruikshank's illustrations, so that a lover of modern art
has been jealous to note the amount paid for by many extremely poor
pictures by this artist, when even original drawings for the
masterpieces by later illustrators went for a song. In Mr. Temple
Scott's indispensable "Book Sales of 1896" we find the two volumes
(1823-6) fetched L12 12_s._
[Illustration: "IN NOOKS WITH BOOKS" AN AUTO-LITHOGRAPH BY R. ANNING
BELL.]
These must not be confounded with Cruikshank's "Fairy Library"
(1847-64), a series of small books in paper wrappers, now exceedingly
rare, which are more distinctly prepared for juvenile readers. The
illustrations to these do not rise above the level of their day, as did
the earlier ones. But this is owing largely to the fact that the
standard had risen far above its old average in the thirty years that
had elapsed. Amid the mass of volumes illustrated by Cruikshank
comparatively few are for juveniles; some of these are: "Grimm's Gammer
Grethel"; "Peter Schlemihl" (1824); "Christmas Recreation" (1825); "Hans
of Iceland" (1825); "German Popular Stories" (1823); "Robinson Crusoe"
(1831); "The Brownies" (1870); "Loblie-by-the-Fire" (1874); "Tom Thumb"
(1830); and "John Gilpin" (1828).
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM "SPEAKING LIKENESSES." BY ARTHUR HUGHES
(MACMILLAN AND CO. 1874)]
The works of Richard Doyle (1824-1883) enjoy in a lesser degree the sort
of inflated popularity which has gathered around those of Cruikshank.
With much spirit and pleasant invention, Doyle lacked academic skill,
and often betrays considerable weakness, not merely in composition, but
in invention. Yet the qualities which won him reputation are by no means
despicable. He evidently felt the charm of fairyland, and peopled it
with droll little folk who are neither too human nor too unreal to be
attractive. He joined the staff of _Punch_ when but nineteen, and soon,
by his political cartoons, and his famous "Manners and Customs of y^e
English drawn from y^e Quick," became an established favourite. His
design for the cover of _Punch_ is one of his happiest inventions. So
highly has he been esteemed that the National Gallery possesses one of
his pictures, _The Triumphant Entry; a Fairy Pageant_. Children's books
with his illustrations are numerous; perhaps the most important are "The
Enchanted Crow" (1871), "Feast of Dwarfs" (1871), "Fortune's Favourite"
(1871), "The Fairy Ring" (1845), "In Fairyland" (1870), "Merry Pictures"
(1857), "Princess Nobody" (1884), "Mark Lemon's Fairy Tales" (1868), "A
Juvenile Calendar" (1855), "Fairy Tales from all Nations" (1849), "Snow
White and Rosy Red" (1871), Ruskin's "The King of the Golden River"
(1884), Hughes's "Scouring of the White Horse" (1859), "Jack the Giant
Killer" (1888), "Home for the Holidays" (1887), "The Whyte Fairy Book"
(1893). The three last are, of course, posthumous publications.
Still confining ourselves to the pre-Victorian period, although the
works in question were popular several decades later, we find "Sandford
and Merton" (first published in 1783, and constantly reprinted), "The
Swiss Family Robinson," the beginning of "Peter Parley's Annals," and a
vast number of other books with the same pseudonym appended, and a host
of didactic works, a large number of which contained pictures of animals
and other natural objects, more or less well drawn. But the pictures in
these are not of any great consequence, merely reflecting the average
taste of the day, and very seldom designed from a child's point of view.
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM "UNDINE." BY SIR JOHN TENNIEL (JAMES
BURNS. 1845)]
This very inadequate sketch of the books before 1837 is not curtailed
for want of material, but because, despite the enormous amount, very few
show attempts to please the child; to warn, to exhort, or to educate are
their chief aims. Occasionally a Bewick or an artist of real power is
met with, but the bulk is not only dull, but of small artistic value.
That the artist's name is rarely given must not be taken as a sign that
only inept draughtsmen were employed, for in works of real importance up
to and even beyond this date we often find his share ignored. After a
time the engraver claims to be considered, and by degrees the designer
is also recognised; yet for the most part illustration was looked upon
merely as "jam" to conceal the pill. The old Puritan conception of art
as vanity had something to do with this, no doubt; for adults often
demand that their children shall obey a sterner rule of life than that
which they accept themselves.
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM "ELLIOTT'S NURSERY RHYMES" BY W. J.
WIEGAND (NOVELLO, 1870)]
Before passing on, it is as well to summarise this preamble and to
discover how far children's books had improved when her Majesty came to
the throne. The old woodcut, rough and ill-drawn, had been succeeded by
the masterpieces of Bewick, and the respectable if dull achievements of
his followers. In the better class of books were excellent designs by
artists of some repute fairly well engraved. Colouring by hand, in a
primitive fashion, was applied to these prints and to impressions from
copperplates. A certain prettiness was the highest aim of most of the
latter, and very few were designed only to amuse a child. It seems as if
all concerned were bent on unbending themselves, careful to offer grains
of truth to young minds with an occasional terrible falsity of their
attitude; indeed, its satire and profound analysis make it superfluous
to reopen the subject. As one might expect, the literature, "genteel"
and dull, naturally desired pictures in the same key. The art of even
the better class of children's books was satisfied if it succeeded in
being "genteel," or, as Miss Limpenny would say, "cumeelfo." Its ideal
reached no higher, and sometimes stopped very far below that modest
standard. This is the best (with the few exceptions already noted) one
can say of pre-Victorian illustration for children.
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM "ELLIOTT'S NURSERY RHYMES" BY H. STACY
MARKS, R.A. (NOVELLO. 1870)]
If there is one opinion deeply rooted in the minds of the comparatively
few Britons who care for art, it is a distrust of "The Cole Gang of
South Kensington;" and yet if there be one fact which confronts any
student of the present revival of the applied arts, it is that sooner or
later you come to its first experiments inspired or actually undertaken
by Sir Henry Cole. Under the pseudonym of "Felix Summerley" we find that
the originator of a hundred revivals of the applied arts, projected and
issued a series of children's books which even to-day are decidedly
worth praise. It is the fashion to trace everything to Mr. William
Morris, but in illustrations for children as in a hundred others "Felix
Summerley" was setting the ball rolling when Morris and the members of
the famous firm were schoolboys.
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM "THE WATER BABIES" BY SIR R. NOEL PATON
(MACMILLAN AND CO. 1863)]
To quote from his own words: "During this period (_i.e._, about 1844),
my young children becoming numerous, their wants induced me to publish a
rather long series of books, which constituted 'Summerley's Home
Treasury,' and I had the great pleasure of obtaining the welcome
assistance of some of the first artists of the time in illustrating
them--Mulready, R.A., Cope, R.A., Horsley, R.A., Redgrave, R.A.,
Webster, R.A., Linnell and his three sons, John, James, and William, H.
J. Townsend, and others.... The preparation of these books gave me
practical knowledge in the technicalities of the arts of type-printing,
lithography, copper and steel-plate engraving and printing, and
bookbinding in all its varieties in metal, wood, leather, &c."
Copies of the books in question appear to be very rare. It is doubtful
if the omnivorous British Museum has swallowed a complete set; certainly
at the Art Library of South Kensington Museum, where, if anywhere, we
might expect to find Sir Henry Cole completely represented, many gaps
occur.
How far Mr. Joseph Cundall, the publisher, should be awarded a share of
the credit for the enterprise is not apparent, but his publications and
writings, together with the books issued later by Cundall and Addey, are
all marked with the new spirit, which so far as one can discover was
working in many minds at this time, and manifested itself most
conspicuously through the Pre-Raphaelites and their allies. This all
took place, it must be remembered, long before 1851. We forget often
that if that exhibition has any important place in the art history of
Great Britain, it does but prove that much preliminary work had been
already accomplished. You cannot exhibit what does not exist; you cannot
even call into being "exhibition specimens" at a few months notice, if
something of the same sort, worked for ordinary commerce, has not
already been in progress for years previously.
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM "THE ROYAL UMBRELLA." BY LINLEY
SAMBOURNE (GRIFFITH AND FARRAN. 1880)]
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM "ON A PINCUSHION." BY WILLIAM DE MORGAN
(SEELEY, JACKSON AND HALLIDAY. 1877)]
Almost every book referred to has been examined anew for the purposes of
this article. As a whole they might fail to impress a critic not
peculiarly interested in the matter. But if he tries to project himself
to the period that produced them, and realises fully the enormous
importance of first efforts, he will not estimate grudgingly their
intrinsic value, but be inclined to credit them with the good things
they never dreamed of, as well as those they tried to realise and often
failed to achieve. Here, without any prejudice for or against the South
Kensington movement, it is but common justice to record Sir Henry Cole's
share in the improvement of children's books; and later on his efforts
on behalf of process engraving must also not be forgotten.
To return to the books in question, some extracts from the original
prospectus, which speaks of them as "purposed to cultivate the
Affections, Fancy, Imagination, and Taste of Children," are worth
quotation:
"The character of most children's books published during the last
quarter of a century, is fairly typified in the name of Peter Parley,
which the writers of some hundreds of them have assumed. The books
themselves have been addressed after a narrow fashion, almost entirely
to the cultivation of the understanding of children. The many tales sung
or said from time to time immemorial, which appealed to the other, and
certainly not less important elements of a little child's mind, its
fancy, imagination, sympathies, affections, are almost all gone out of
memory, and are scarcely to be obtained. 'Little Red Riding Hood,' and
other fairy tales hallowed to children's use, are now turned into
ribaldry as satires for men; as for the creation of a new fairy tale or
touching ballad, such a thing is unheard of. That the influence of all
this is hurtful to children, the conductor of this series firmly
believes. He has practical experience of it every day in his own family,
and he doubts not that there are many others who entertain the same
opinions as himself. He purposes at least to give some evidence of his
belief, and to produce a series of works, the character of which may be
briefly described as anti-Peter Parleyism.
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM "THE NECKLACE OF PRINCESS FIORIMONDE."
BY WALTER CRANE (MACMILLAN AND CO. 1880)]
"Some will be new works, some new combinations of old materials, and
some reprints carefully cleared of impurities, without deterioration to
the points of the story. All will be illustrated, but not after the
usual fashion of children's books, in which it seems to be assumed that
the lowest kind of art is good enough to give first impressions to a
child. In the present series, though the statement may perhaps excite a
smile, the illustrations will be selected from the works of Raffaelle,
Titian, Hans Holbein, and other old masters. Some of the best modern
artists have kindly promised their aid in creating a taste for beauty in
little children." Did space permit, a selection from the reviews of the
chief literary papers that welcomed the new venture would be
instructive. There we should find that even the most cautious critic,
always "hedging" and playing for safety, felt compelled to accord a
certain amount of praise to the new enterprise.
It is true that "Felix Summerley" created only one type of the modern
book. Possibly the "stories turned into satires" to which he alludes are
the entirely amusing volumes by F. H. Bayley, the author of "A New Tale
of a Tub." As it happened that these volumes were my delight as a small
boy, possibly I am unduly fond of them; but it seems to me that their
humour--_a la_ Ingoldsby, it is true--and their exuberantly comic
drawings, reveal the first glimpses of lighter literature addressed
specially to children, that long after found its masterpieces in the
"Crane" and "Greenaway" and "Caldecott" Toy Books, in "Alice in
Wonderland," and in a dozen other treasured volumes, which are now
classics. The chief claim for the Home Treasury series to be considered
as the advance guard of our present sumptuous volumes, rests not so much
upon the quality of their designs or the brightness of their literature.
Their chief importance is that in each of them we find for the first
time that the externals of a child's book are most carefully considered.
Its type is well chosen, the proportions of its page are evidently
studied, its binding, even its end-papers, show that some one person was
doing his best to attain perfection. It is this conscious effort,
whatever it actually realised, which distinguishes the result from all
before.
It is evident that the series--the Home Treasury--took itself seriously.
Its purpose was Art with a capital A--a discovery, be it noted, of this
period. Sir Henry Cole, in a footnote to the very page whence the
quotation above was extracted, discusses the first use of "Art" as an
adjective denoting the _Fine_ Arts.
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM "HOUSEHOLD STORIES FROM GRIMM." BY
WALTER CRANE (MACMILLAN AND CO. 1882)]
Here it is more than ever difficult to keep to the thread of this
discourse. All that South Kensington did and failed to do, the aesthetic
movement of the eighties, the new gospel of artistic salvation by
Liberty fabrics and De Morgan tiles, the erratic changes of fashion in
taste, the collapse of Gothic architecture, the triumph of Queen Anne,
and the Arts and Crafts movement of the nineties--in short, all the
story of Art in the last fifty years, from the new Law Courts to the
Tate Gallery, from Felix Summerley to a Hollyer photograph, from the
introduction of glyptography to the pictures in the _Daily Chronicle_,
demand notice. But the door must be shut on the turbulent throng, and
only children's books allowed to pass through.
The publications by "Felix Summerley," according to the list in "Fifty
Years of Public Work," by Sir Henry Cole, K.C.B. (Bell, 1884), include:
"Holbein's Bible Events," eight pictures, coloured by Mr. Linnell's
sons, 4_s._ 6_d._; "Raffaelle's Bible Events," six pictures from the
Loggia, drawn on stone by Mr. Linnell's children and coloured by them,
5_s._ 6_d._; "Albert Duerer's Bible Events," six pictures from Duerer's
"Small Passion," coloured by the brothers Linnell; "Traditional Nursery
Songs," containing eight pictures; "The Beggars coming to Town," by C.
W. Cope, R.A.; "By, O my Baby!" by R. Redgrave, R.A.; "Mother Hubbard,"
by T. Webster, R.A.; "1, 2, 3, 4, 5," "Sleepy Head," "Up in a Basket,"
"Cat asleep by the Fire," by John Linnell, 4_s._ 6_d._, coloured; "The
Ballad of Sir Hornbook," by Thos. Love Peacock, with eight pictures by
H. Corbould, coloured, 4_s._ 6_d._ (A book with the same title, also
described as a "grammatico-allegorical ballad," was published by N.
Haites in 1818.) "Chevy Chase," with music and four pictures by
Frederick Tayler, President of the Water-Colour Society, coloured, 4_s._
6_d._; "Puck's Reports to Oberon"; Four new Faery Tales: "The Sisters,"
"Golden Locks," "Grumble and Cherry," "Arts and Arms," by C. A. Cole,
with six pictures by J. H. Townsend, R. Redgrave, R.A., J. C. Horsley,
R.A., C. W. Cope, R.A., and F. Tayler; "Little Red Riding Hood," with
four pictures by Thos. Webster, coloured, 3_s._ 6_d._; "Beauty and the
Beast," with four pictures by J. C. Horsley, R.A., coloured, 3_s._
6_d._; "Jack and the Bean Stalk," with four pictures by C. W. Cope,
R.A., coloured, 3_s._ 6_d._; "Cinderella," with four pictures by E. H.
Wehnert, coloured, 3_s._ 6_d._; "Jack the Giant Killer," with four
pictures by C. W. Cope, coloured, 3_s._ 6_d._; "The Home Treasury
Primer," printed in colours, with drawing on zinc, by W. Mulready, R.A.;
"Alphabets of Quadrupeds," selected from the works of Paul Potter, Karl
du Jardin, Teniers, Stoop, Rembrandt, &c., and drawn from nature; "The
Pleasant History of Reynard the Fox," with forty of the fifty-seven
etchings made by Everdingen in 1752, coloured, 31_s._ 6_d._; "A Century
of Fables," with pictures by the old masters.