The seasons from 1890 Kate Greenaway’s Almanack – #ChristmasCountdown Door no. 16

Page from Kate Greenaway's almanack 1890 (19th Century Collections, 19th C. Coll 030 GRE)

Page from Kate Greenaway’s almanack 1890 (19th Century Collections, 19th C. Coll 030 GRE)

Page from Kate Greenaway's almanack 1890 (19th Century Collections, 19th C. Coll 030 GRE)

Page from Kate Greenaway’s almanack 1890 (19th Century Collections, 19th C. Coll 030 GRE)

Page from Kate Greenaway's almanack 1890 (19th Century Collections, 19th C. Coll 030 GRE)

Page from Kate Greenaway’s almanack 1890 (19th Century Collections, 19th C. Coll 030 GRE)

Page from Kate Greenaway's almanack 1890 (19th Century Collections, 19th C. Coll 030 GRE)

Page from Kate Greenaway’s almanack 1890 (19th Century Collections, 19th C. Coll 030 GRE)

The below extract is taken from Kate Greenaway’s 1890 almanack and describes the seasons through rhyme and accompanying illustrations…

“SPRING

The lambs are playing, and the day
Is sweetly scented with the May.

Summer

The sun is warm, but sweetly cool
The waters of the rippling pool.

AUTUMN

The corn is cut, and on the bough
Are reddest apples hanging now.

WINTER

The cold is keen, for north winds blow,
And softly falling comes the snow.”

Catherine Greenaway (1846 – 1901), known as Kate Greenaway, was an English children’s book illustrator and writer. Her almanacs ran from 1883 up until 1897, with no 1896 issue being published. Each almanacks included a Jan-Dec calendar, beautifully drawn illustrations and short poems. Her almanacs were sold throughout America, England, Germany and France and were produced with different variations and in different languages.

‘The Night Before Christmas’ #ChritmasCountdown Door no.10

Page from 'The Night Before Christmas' (821.91 MOO)

Page from ‘The Night Before Christmas‘, 1903 (821.91 MOO)

“The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow,
Gave the lustre of midday to objects below – 
When what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer.”

The above image and extract are from ‘The Night Before Christmas’,  Dean’s Rag Books Co. Ltd.

‘The Night Before Christmas’ (1903) contains colourful illustrations printed on fabric (also known as rag books) and is sewn up the spine using thread.

Dean’s Rag Books Co. Ltd, was founded in 1903, by Henry Samuel Dean. The company was originally set up to make rag books but soon diversed into rag sheets and soft toys, including teddy bears. During the 1920s and 1930s Dean’s were at the forefront of British bear manufacturing.

Listen to this Story!

Approximately 35 years after Akyaaba Addai-Sebo – a Ghanaian-born activist – established Britain’s first-ever ‘Black History Month’, the UK continues to celebrate the achievements and contributions of Black people every October. This annual celebration aims to promote a better understanding of Black history, with events taking place all the way from London to Aberdeen this year.

To coincide with this important month, Newcastle Robinson Library has collaborated with Seven Stories to host a city-wide exhibition on Black Britain and children’s literature. Embodying the message, ‘Listen to This Story: From History to Our Story’, the exhibition features some of the most interesting picture books, nursery rhymes and illustrations, told from the material within Newcastle University’s Special Collections and Archives. The exhibition is running from 20th October 2022 – January 2023, on Level 2, Special Collections and Archives exhibition space, Philip Robinson Library – free and open to all.

Listen to this Story! exhibition poster, featuring an illustration of 2 black girls dressed in white t-shirts with a green pinafore dress over the top, reading books on a brown table

Analysing these archived children’s works has enabled us to look back over centuries of British literary history, allowing us to present a unique insight into how race relations have changed within the UK. Many of the books show how, historically, literature for young people has played a prominent role in transferring problematic ideas about race and power. Indeed, it becomes clear that texts even for the very youngest of readers, such as ABC books and nursery rhymes, have depicted non-white people in derogatory and stereotypical ways.

Front cover of Ten Little Niggger Boys by Jean Cumming [on loan from Karen Sands O’Connor’s Collection.  

In a similar way, we can see that young people’s texts also presented people of colour as being white children’s ‘play-things’, such as toys, dolls, and gnomes. Presenting Black people like this was historically used to justify white oppression as it effectively demonstrated people of colour as needing parental care and governance.

An example of this can be seen in William Nicholson’s The Pirate Twins (1929). In which, Nicholson presents two childlike pirates; miniature Black people who are cared for (and controlled) by a young white girl called Mary.

Illustration from The Pirate Twins, by Nicholson, William (1929) [Butler (Joan) Collection, 823.912 NIC]

These dehumanising caricatures became so normalised in British society that they could be found not only in children’s books but on postcards, perfume bottles, games, and jam jar stickers (to name but a few examples). They worked to elevate Eurocentric, white standards and devalue Black individuals, cultures, features and histories.

As a way to counteract and resist these harmful depictions, many authors, publicists and illustrators worked hard to create humanising stories which normalised and celebrated Black people.

It is clear, then, that a lot of progress has been made in the world of children’s literature.

However, with only 15% of published children’s books featuring a character of colour in 2020, we still have a long way to go to ensure that everybody is represented equally!

Written by exhibition placement student, Ella Fothergill.

We have sought to ensure that the content of this blog post complies with UK copyright law. Please note however, that we have been unable to ascertain the rights holders of some of the images used. If you are concerned that there may have been a breach of your intellectual property rights, please contact us with the details of the image(s) concerned at libraryhelp@ncl.ac.uk and we will have the specified image(s) taken down from the blog post.

Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin – February 2021

The book Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin was one of the first English-language children’s book to discuss male homosexuality and inadvertently played a significant role in one of the most difficult and controversial episodes in the history of the struggle for equality for LGBT people in the UK.

Written by Danish author Susanne Bösche and first published in Danish in 1981, the book was published in English in 1983 by Gay Men’s Press, intended to help reduce anti-gay prejudice and to be a resource to facilitate discussion with children about homosexuality.

Front cover of the Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin book.
Front cover of Jenny Lives With Eric and Martin (Gay Men’s Press, 1983). (Alderson (Brian) Collection, Alderson Collection BOS JEN)

Special Collections’ copy of Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin is held in the Alderson (Brian) Collection of children’s books, and demonstrates how a book may become politicised owing to its content and the context in which it is viewed, in this particular book’s case, having become a weapon in a war over the teaching of sexuality in schools.

The story describes a few days in the life of five-year-old Jenny, her father, Martin, and his partner Eric who lives with them. Jenny’s mother Karen lives nearby and often visits. It covers their various day-to-day activities, including going to the laundrette together; playing a game of lotto; preparing a surprise birthday party for Eric; and Eric and Martin having a minor argument and making up. There is also a conversation with a passer-by who expresses homophobic disgust when meeting the family in the street, the subject of a later discussion between Eric and Jenny.

Page 29 of Jenny Lives With Eric and Martin containing text from the story and a photograph showing a young girl sat between two men at a table.
P.29 of Jenny Lives With Eric and Martin (Gay Men’s Press, 1983). (Alderson (Brian) Collection, Alderson Collection BOS JEN)

That the 1980s was a time of rising negative sentiments towards homosexuality in the UK is well-documented. In 1986 a copy of Jenny Lives With Eric and Martin was made available by the Inner London Education Authority in a teachers’ centre specifically for the use of teachers who wanted to know more about gay or lesbian parents. In response to this, various national newspapers inaccurately reported that the book was being made available in school libraries.

The ensuing controversy, including the condemnation of the book’s availability by the Secretary of State for Education, resulted in fear that the book was being used as “homosexual propaganda”, and made a major contribution towards the Conservative Government’s subsequent passing of the controversial Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, which forbade the promotion of homosexuality by local government and in schools in England, Wales and Scotland.

Attitudes towards sexuality and sexual minorities have shifted a great deal over the decades since the passing of Section 28, which was reviled by many far beyond the gay community itself. Now largely held to have been an unnecessary and unjust assault on civil rights, the legislation was repealed in 2003, and in 2009 the Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron apologised publicly for it.

Page 32 of Jenny Lives With Eric and Martin containing text and a large photograph of two men walking down a street with a young girl between them.
P.32 of Jenny Lives With Eric and Martin (Gay Men’s Press, 1983). (Alderson (Brian) Collection, Alderson Collection BOS JEN)

Bösche, Susanne. Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin (Gay Men’s Press, 1983)

Shelf mark: Alderson Collection BOS JEN

Puffin Books – August 2020

2020 marks 80 years since the creation of Puffin Books, which are the children’s division of Penguin Books. The idea initially came about in 1939 after a meeting between Noel Carrington and Allen Lane, the founder of Penguin Books, with the creation of the company a year later.

The original idea was to publish a series of children’s non-fiction books which were a success. The first Puffin storybook was entitled Worzel Gummidge and appeared in 1941. During the early years Puffin Books encountered problems such as paper rationing during World War II and libraries still preferring hardback books rather than paperback.

Title page of Worzel Gummidge by Barbara Euphan Todd
Title page of Worzel Gummidge by Barbara Euphan Todd, illustrated by Tony Ross (OUP, 2002), text copyright © Barbara Euphan Todd 1936, reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press. (Book Trust Collection, FICTION TOD WOR)

Under its first editor, Eleanor Graham, Puffin aimed to publish 12 titles per year. During the 1950s, stories which allowed children’s imaginations to wander were published. Titles included Charlotte’s Web and C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.

Under the editorship of Kaye Webb, children’s publishing increased during the 1960s from 151 to 1,213 titles which included reprints of such classics as The Hobbit . New titles at this time included Stig of the Dump. A picture book list and teenage fiction began to be published as well as the introduction of The Puffin Book Club, which still exists.

Titles published during the 1970s and 1980s included The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the Spot the Dog series.

Recent titles include Harry and his Dinosaurs and the Charlie and Lola series which have both been televised.  Roald Dahl’s popularity as an author has led to an annual celebration which takes place on 13th September.

Sir John Tenniel – February 2020

28th February 2020 marks 200 years since the birth of the illustrator and political cartoonist, Sir John Tenniel. Although he is best known for his illustrations in Alice in Wonderland, for many years he was also one of the cartoonists for the magazine, Punch. He was knighted for his work in 1893.

Tenniel’s skills in drawing were largely self-taught. He did secure a place at the Royal Academy of Art but left dissatisfied after just a few weeks and joined the Clipstone Street Art Society.  Here he studied all aspects of drawing, copying exhibits from the British Museum and wildlife from Regent’s Park. However, he tended to draw from memory rather than from life. He also studied Fresco technique and worked on wood.

Tenniel had exhibited artwork from the age of 16, and his first published illustration was in Hall’s Book of British Ballads in 1842.

Hall, Book of British Ballads (19th Century Collection 821.04 HAL)

Page from Hall, Book of British Ballads (19th Century Collection 821.04 HAL)
Page from ‘Hall, Book of British Ballads‘ (19th Century Collection 821.04 HAL)

In 1845 Tenniel obtained a commission to paint a fresco in the Upper Waiting Hall in the Houses of Parliament after entering a contest. Part of the commission was to study fresco drawing in Munich with the other successful artists. His entry, a sixteen-foot high cartoon The Spirit of Justice, was noticed by the editor of Punch, Mark Lemon, who offered Tenniel a job as joint cartoonist in 1850.

Tenniel’s first illustration in Punch was published on 8th February 1851, depicting Lord John Russell and Cardinal Wiseman.

Page from 'Punch', Volume 20 (19th Century Collection 052 PUN)
Page from ‘Punch’, Volume 20 (19th Century Collection 052 PUN)

In 1860, Tenniel became the political cartoonist for Punch and remained working for the publication, as well as illustrating in books until he retired in 1900.

In 1864 Tenniel met Lewis Carroll. It was suggested by his publisher that Carroll used a professional illustrator on his recently written children’s story, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Tenniel supplied 92 illustrations for this, as well as Carroll’s later publication Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There. However, the relationship became strained and Tenniel never undertook literary illustration again.

For all his life John Tenniel lived in London. His poor eyesight as the result of a fencing accident as a child, eventually led to blindness in later years.

His knighthood was a first for an illustrator or cartoonist and brought a respectability to the profession, his legacy, the 2000 images published in Punch and 92 illustrations in Lewis Carroll’s much-loved fairy tale.

Me and Catharine Susan earns an honest penny – #ChristmasCountdown Door no. 19

#ChristmasCountdown
Door no. 19

The story starts with peg dolls sitting at a dinner table…

Page from 'Me and Catharine Susan earns an honest penny' showing two peg dolls at the table with empty plates

Page from ‘Me and Catharine Susan earns an honest penny‘ showing two peg dolls at the table with empty plates (Rare Books, RB 823.912 AIN)

“Empty plates!!
and not a penny left.

Something must be
done at once.”

You join two peg dolls on their journey trying to earn some money, through setting up (with varying successes) different businesses, such as a sewing and clothes alterations shop, a tea shop in their garden, becoming market gardeners and growing their own vegetables, selling buttonholes and teaching other peg dolls to dance.

Page from 'Me and Catharine Susan earns an honest penny' showing one of the peg dolls create buttonholes to sell

Page from ‘Me and Catharine Susan earns an honest penny’ showing one of the peg dolls create buttonholes to sell (Rare Books, RB 823.912 AIN)

Page from 'Me and Catharine Susan earns an honest penny' showing one of the peg dolls showing the 'Buttonholers' to dance

Page from ‘Me and Catharine Susan earns an honest penny’ showing one of the peg dolls showing the ‘Buttonholers’ to dance (Rare Books, RB 823.912 AIN)

Explore another Kathleen Ainslie book that we have in Special Collections; ‘Catherine Susan and Me’s Coming Out’, in our February 2017 Treasure of the Month Feature

Crawhall’s Old Aunt Elspa’s ABC – #ChristmasCountdown Door no. 6

#ChristmasCountdown
Door No. 6

Page from Old Aunt Elspa’s ABC (Joseph Crawhall Collection, Crawhall 50)

Y
For Youngsters,
and Yawning,  
and Yelling,
Yahoo!

Is this something that you’ll be doing on Christmas morning?

Old Aunt Elspa’s ABC is an alphabet book containing woodblock printed letters, with associated images, detailing the alphabet, created by Joseph Crawhall II.

Joseph Crawhall II was born in Newcastle in 1821 and was the son of Joseph Crawhall I, who was a sheriff of Newcastle. As well as running the family ropery business with his brothers, he also spent his time illustrating, making woodcuts and producing books.

See the full book online via CollectionsCaptured.

Interested in more from Joseph Crawhall II? Find more in the Joseph Crawhall II Collection and Joseph Crawhall II Archive.

‘A Lilliputian Miscellany’ an exhibition by Brian Alderson

‘A Lilliputian Miscellany’ now open to the public June – August 2017.
Level 1, Philip Robinson Library, Newcastle University

Curated by Brian Alderson, ‘A Lilliputian Miscellany’ celebrates the gift of the Alderson Collection to Newcastle University and Seven Stories. Read more about the children’s book collection in the Vital North Partnership blog. It shows some of the less usual children’s books and manuscripts in his Collection and relate many of them to Brian’s career as writer, translator, and editor.  What a commingling will be seen as the Brothers Grimm rub shoulders with Charles Kingsley, or a tribute is paid to those Northumbrian figures of Thomas Bewick illustrating Mother Goose’s Melody and Joseph Ritson with his Gammer Gurton’s Garland.

Brian Alderson is one of the pioneers of children’s literature studies in Britain and a distinguished author, reviewer, translator and collector. In 2016, Brian Alderson was awarded an honorary degree by Newcastle University, recognising his work on the history of children’s books. Find out more about Brian and his work on the Brian Alderson website, or view the items from Brian’s collection that have already been catalogued on Newcastle University’s Library Search.

Brian Alderson at home in front of his book collection


Brian Alderson has written the text himself and some of the highlights from the exhibition are shown below, but there are many more wonders to see in the exhibition in the Philip Robinson Library. An accompanying exhibition catalogue is also available, which provides more detail about the items.

Boreman and Newbery

For well over a hundred years the eighteenth century bookseller John Newbery in St Paul’s Church-Yard has been the cynosure of the collecting fraternity. It was he who established a steady output of children’s books sufficient to prove to the trade that this could be a new and profitable line of business.

While Newbery’s most famous books are rare they are probably less so than his important predecessor, Thomas Boreman, who’s Gigantick Histories began to come out a year or two before any of Newbery’s books. I had never thought to own one of these tiny volumes which stand at the true beginnings of the regular children’s book trade, but Thomas Boreman’s Curiosities of the Tower of London, came to me through an extraordinarily lucky purchase from a bookseller’s catalogue at a price whose modesty I found unbelievable.

THOMAS BOREMAN
Curiosities of the Tower of London
1741

The prelims include Boreman’s celebrated rhymed puff on the theme that ‘Tom Thumb shall now be thrown away’ in favour of ‘something to please and form the mind’ which is followed by a 14-page list of ‘Subscribers to this Work’, reprinted from the first edition of the same year. The illustrations, barring one of the defeat of the Spanish Armada, are extremely attractive cuts of some of the animals housed in the Tower of London’s menagerie.

Title page from ‘Curiosities in the Tower of London

Anon
The Story of Goody Two Shoes
1940

One of the many series of miniature coloured booklets that were issued early in the Second World War for reading in air-raid shelters etc.

Front cover of ‘The Story of Goody Two Shoes


Nursery Rhymes

I first met Peter Opie round about 1967 when we were forming what was to become the Children’s Books History Society. Subsequently we went several times as a family to Westerfield House (now Mells House) when book treasures were revealed to me while the children enjoyed the historic toys that were demonstrated in the room that Peter and Iona Opie called ‘the Museum’.

With an Opie-inspired interest in the history of nursery-rhyme publishing, it led me to the following interesting editions appearing in the collection.

Tom Thumb’s Play-Thing, being a new and pleasant method to allure little ones into the first principles of learning; with cuts well adapted to each letter in the alphabet. As brought into easy verse for the instruction and amusement of children.
No date [ca. 1810]

The prodigious title belies the extreme simplicity of the two chapbooks, the first consisting simply of the two alphabets ‘A was an Archer’ and ‘A was an Ape’, the second a series of six couplets (‘The Sun shines bright, / The Moon gives light.’ etc.) followed, alas, by a 5-page catechism and a story on the rewards of learning to read which commends: ‘Robinson Crusoe and Goody Two Shoes which are sold, with many others, as well instructive as entertaining, in gold covers, embellished with a variety of pictures, at the same place as this…’ Although not including any rhymes from Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song-Book Volume II these chapbooks may well draw upon the contents of the lost first volume.

Pages 8 and 9 from ‘Tom Thumbs Play Thing

Mother Goose’s Melody; or, sonnets for the cradle. Containing the most celebrated songs and lullabies of the old British nurses. Embellished with many beautiful pictures.
No date (Watermarks 1809 and 1810)

It has been suggested that this important collection of 51 rhymes was first planned by John Newbery just before his death in 1767 but the first edition, perhaps from his papers, did not appear until 1780, published by his successor, Thomas Carnan, who added sixteen poems by ‘that sweet Songster… Master William Shakespeare’. The earliest surviving copy, a facsimile of which is exhibited alongside this book, was published soon after Carnan’s death in 1788 by his brief successor, Francis Power. He revised the production process, dropping Shakespeare and aligning the book to the new fashion for hand-coloured picture books in a square format.

Title page from ‘Mother Goose’s Melody


Folk Tales

It was an interest in ballads, dating back to undergraduate days that encouraged my attention to the oral qualities in children’s literature and especially in the transmission of folk tales, which have no definitive text but are rooted in the told story. It seemed to me of primary importance to judge the printed forms of these old familiar narratives, either those native to an English, Scottish or Irish tradition or, especially, those translated from their original sources by the degree of their adherence to natural speech.

A fundamental influence on both theory and practice came when, in 1968, I was sent The English Fairy Tales edited by Joseph Jacobs.

ANDREW LANG, Brian Alderson illustrated by John Lawrence
The Blue Fairy Book

Joseph Jacobs was the inspiration for the editorial work that I undertook in ‘refurbishing’ this famous collection; I think too that he would have shared my misgivings as to its first editing which was largely the work of Mrs Lang and assorted friendly ladies. With Patrick Hardy’s (editor at Kestrel Books) encouragement, I attempted a wholesale revision (fully explained in my Preface and notes) in an attempt to bring the volume more closely towards the folk tradition at the root of ‘fairy tales’. At the same time, a decision was made to replace the (often very strong) illustrations by H. J. Ford with a contemporary illustrator and John Lawrence, who undertook the task, was asked to look at Ford’s work and attempt to replicate its notable position in ‘the black-and-white’ tradition (this occurred very successfully with later illustrators too).

Front cover from ‘Blue Fairy Book


Hans Christian Anderson

Where Hans Christian Andersen is concerned an entirely different critical regime is required for the (often unrecognised) reason that his canon of 156 stories is that of an independent author whose texts do not share the multivalency of those from folk tales. They are crafted works of literature (which all too often suffer from abridgment or adaptation) and – importantly – many of them draw directly upon Andersen’s own voice as storyteller.

The items give merely a glimpse of the challenge and enjoyment of the chase of collecting Hans Christian Andersen’s stories.

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSON [SIC]
Wonderful Stories for Children
1846

Published for Christmas 1845, this first English translation of the Eventir advertises ten stories on the contents page. Thus, right at the beginning, we find liberties taken with poor old Andersen’s texts. Leaving aside the misspelling of his name on the title-page, we also find a story called ‘A Night in the Kitchen’, which proves to be a passage excerpted from ‘The Flying Trunk’, one of Andersen’s funniest stories. At least it is taken from the Danish, unlike most of its immediate successors and it is perhaps understandable that, being the first to attempt the job, Howitt has not the ear to catch the fluency of the author’s unusual conversational lightness.

Title page from ‘Wonderful Stories for Children

(18) G[EORGE] N[ICOL]
The Ugly Duck of Hans Christian Andersen
1851

A little book with a complex parentage. Its author was the brother of its publisher (who was Bookseller to the Queen) and in 1837 he published a versification of Southey’s The Three Bears. In 1840 that was jokingly joined by a versification of the Grimms’ Wolf and the Seven Little Kids (probably based direct on the German version) and in 1841 the two stories were joined with a third on ‘The Vizier and the Woodman’. We do not know why it took George so long to catch up with Hans Christian Anderson, for The Ugly Duckling was among the favourites of the 1846 tranche of translations.

Pages 6 and 17 from ‘The Ugly Duckk of Hans Christian Anderson


Verses

It could be argued that if nobody had ever written poetry to be read primarily by children the children would not be very much the poorer. The mass of anonymous popular versifying enjoyed by everyone, which would include nursery rhymes, makes a foundation for the child’s love of rhythmic speech and, as many an anthology will prove, there is a mass of poetry written primarily for adults which can be equally enjoyed by the young. A Blake, a Lear, a Stevenson, and others can justify the genre and this section points up some of its rarer or less usual manifestations.

The Butterfly’s Birth-Day, St. Valentine’s Day. And Madam Whale’s Ball, poems to amuse and instruct the rising generation.
1808

Three sets of verses, the first signed ‘A. D. M.’, preoccupied, as with the founding party-poem, with crews of animals attending first the butterfly’s birth, bursting out of its chrysalis, second pairs of creatures on a Valentine’s parade and third various sea creatures aiming to emulate the (earlier published) ‘elephant’s rout’. Mechanical stuff, although it is good to know that some little fellows got to the birthday:

From Chester and Stilton, by waggons and stages,
Trav’ling snug in old cheeses, by land and by sea,
Congregations of Jumpers and Mites of all ages,
Fast arrived at the spot the new marvel to see.

Title page from ‘The Butterfly’s Birth-Day, St. Valentine’s Day. And Madam Whale’s Ball, poems to amuse and instruct the rising generation’

EDWARD LEAR
A Book of Nonsense
1862

I have loved Lear from childhood on (as who could not?). This third edition seems to be rarer than one might expect (the collector William B. Osgood Field only knew it through owning Lear’s proof copy!) and it is important as including 46 hitherto unpublished limericks and being illustrated with wood engravings rather than the previously hand-drawn lithographs.

The collection holds most of the later nineteenth century editions and many twentieth-century ones whose re-illustration, with the exception of the work of Edward Gorey and John Vernon Lord, are deplorable.

Front cover from ‘A Book of Nonsense


Humphrey Milford, OUP and The Water Babies

On the day that I bought H.R.Millar’s The Dreamland Express it was borne in upon me that more was going on at the London office of Oxford University Press (OUP) than I had bargained for. I began to look out more regularly for books with the Henry Frowde or Humphrey Milford imprints, conjoined usually with Oxford University Press, in catalogues and at book fairs.

The Little Old Woman of X
No date [?1916]

Humphrey Milford (later Sir Humphrey) took over from Henry Frowde at the London office of Oxford University Press in 1916 and I suspect that string-bound volumes, sometimes in little slip-cases, may have been in production before that time.

Front cover from ‘The Little Old Woman of X’

Another interest of mine is in Charles Kingsley’s famous but barmy story, which led me to collect variant editions of The Water Babies which now number about sixty. My mother read it to me as a child and I held in my memory recollections of Samber’s illustrations from the most frequently reprinted edition of the story and my aim in forming the collection was (and still is) a desire to compile a critical account of the failure of almost every illustrator to cope with the demands of Kingsley’s text.

CHARLES KINGSLEY
The Water-Babies; a fairy tale for a land-baby
1863
 

Front cover from ‘The Water-Babies; a fairy tale for a land-baby’

Below are 2 holograph fine line drawings by Harold Jones for pages 33 and 107 of the edition edited by Kathleen Lines (1961). The first drawing coloured by Harold Jones for a selling exhibition, where I bought them. The quality of Jones’s drawing is ruined by both the printing and the paper of the published edition.

2 holograph line drawings by Harold Jones for pages 33 and 107

WALT DISNEY
The Water Babies [2-colour vignette]
No date [ca. 1936]

An (expensive) catastrophe, being not only one of the ugliest books in my collection but one which has nothing to do with Charles Kingsley and his story. Still – it looks nowadays to be quite a scarce volume.

Front cover from ‘The Water Babies

Kathleen Ainslie’s Mischievous Dutch Peg Dolls – February 2017

Front cover from ‘Catherine Susan and Me’s Coming Out’ by Kathleen Ainslie (Rare Books 823.912 AIN)

Front cover from ‘Catherine Susan and Me’s Coming Out’ by Kathleen Ainslie (Rare Books 823.912 AIN)

Kathleen Ainslie was an illustrator, active in the years 1900-1911. She is best-known for her series of children’s books based on jointed Dutch peg dolls which were popular during the 19th and early-20th centuries (Florence Kate Upton’s The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls and a Golliwogg had been published in 1895.)

The first of two books that we have recently added to our Rare Books Collection is Catherine Susan and Me’s coming out, published in London by Castell Brothers Ltd. and in New York by Frederick A. Stokes, c.1906 (COPAC lists just one copy, at Cambridge University).

Catherine Susan and Maria are weary of household chores so they issue a public notice to announce that they are ‘coming out’. Their coming out is both in the sense of venturing out on a trip to London and of being presented to society.

Pages 1-2 from ‘Catherine Susan and Me’s Coming Out’ by Kathleen Ainslie (Rare Books 823.912 AIN)

Pages 1-2 from ‘Catherine Susan and Me’s Coming Out’ by Kathleen Ainslie (Rare Books 823.912 AIN)

Of course, such a momentous occasion requires clothes and the dolls have nothing appropriate to wear. Dutch peg dolls were sold undressed and children made clothes for them from scraps of cloth. Towards the end of the 19th Century, the female silhouette changed rapidly and, certainly in the early 20th Century, styles, designs and fabrics from other cultures had become more influential in fashion. In the haberdashery store, the dolls argue about whether to wear muslin or white satin, both of which were considered stylish at the time. In the 1880s and 1890s, small hats ornamented with birds, feathers and artificial flowers were fashionable. The mischievous dolls chase hens and then secure the feathers to their heads with hammer and nails!

Pages 11-12 from ‘Catherine Susan and Me’s Coming Out’ by Kathleen Ainslie (Rare Books 823.912 AIN)

Pages 11-12 from ‘Catherine Susan and Me’s Coming Out’ by Kathleen Ainslie (Rare Books 823.912 AIN)

Catherine Susan and Maria squeeze into car and find a warm welcome in London. They are invited to attend a ball – in the 19th and early 20th centuries, numerous balls were held for members of ‘high society’. Debutante balls were occasions at which young women ‘came out’. Fans were essential: not just part of the outfit but a form of non-verbal communication conveying rejection (a closed fan), interest (an open fan) or excitement (a fluttering fan). Catherine Susan isn’t shy and sits with her fan open and, later, dances with a gentleman she tells everyone was a prince.

Pages 17-18 from ‘Catherine Susan and Me’s Coming Out’ by Kathleen Ainslie (Rare Books 823.912 AIN)

Pages 17-18 from ‘Catherine Susan and Me’s Coming Out’ by Kathleen Ainslie (Rare Books 823.912 AIN)

The dolls go to a polo match. Polo had been imported to England in the 1860s, from India, and its popularity grew in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Although the dolls exclaim at how fast the horses gallop, British polo was slower and more methodical than the polo played in Manipur. They also try their hands at punting. Punting boats were first built for pleasure in England in the 1860s. Pleasure punting probably started on the River Thames but became increasingly popular in the early 1900s. In the evening, they go to the theatre – although Maria doesn’t remember what they saw, from the balcony scene, it looks as though it might have been Romeo and Juliet. Victorian productions of Shakespeare’s plays often prioritised ‘authentic’ costumes and scenery and to be a bona fide actor/actress, like Henry Irving (1838-1905) or Ellen Terry (1847-1928), was to be a great Shakespearean actor.

Pages 27-28 from ‘Catherine Susan and Me’s Coming Out’ by Kathleen Ainslie (Rare Books 823.912 AIN)

Pages 27-28 from ‘Catherine Susan and Me’s Coming Out’ by Kathleen Ainslie (Rare Books 823.912 AIN)

By the end of the book, the dolls are both exhausted.

Pages 29-30 from ‘Catherine Susan and Me’s Coming Out’ by Kathleen Ainslie (Rare Books 823.912 AIN)

Pages 29-30 from ‘Catherine Susan and Me’s Coming Out’ by Kathleen Ainslie (Rare Books 823.912 AIN)

The second book by Kathleen Ainslie that we have added to our Rare Books Collection is What I did, published c.1905 (COPAC lists copies held at the British Library, Manchester University and Oxford University.) Inside the front cover, someone has written in pencil “I hope you will like reading this book. It is very amusing”. This time, the protagonist is a naughty Dutch doll schoolboy and the book recounts his boarding school escapades: fagging (i.e. slaving) for an older boy called Tomkins; swimming; playing cricket; cavorting in the dormitory; and smoking.

Pages 25-26 from ‘What I Did’ by Cathleen Ainslie (Rare Books 823.912 AIN)

Pages 25-26 from ‘What I Did’ by Cathleen Ainslie (Rare Books 823.912 AIN)

We do not currently have any more of Kathleen Ainslie’s Dutch peg doll books but in other stories, Catherine Susan and her companion, Maria, celebrate holidays, take on odd jobs and even agitate for women’s suffrage (Votes for Catherine Susan and Me, 1910). Ainslie wrote about 25 books (the first being Me and Catherine Susan in 1903), as well as illustrating a series of six calendars (1906-1911). They all feature the same brand of humorous chromolithographed illustrations.