{"id":1213,"date":"2017-06-29T13:00:24","date_gmt":"2017-06-29T13:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/speccoll\/?p=1213"},"modified":"2017-06-28T16:11:48","modified_gmt":"2017-06-28T16:11:48","slug":"a-lilliputian-miscellany-an-exhibition-by-brian-alderson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/speccoll\/2017\/06\/29\/a-lilliputian-miscellany-an-exhibition-by-brian-alderson\/","title":{"rendered":"‘A Lilliputian Miscellany’ an exhibition by Brian Alderson"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u2018A Lilliputian Miscellany\u2019 now open to the public June \u2013 August 2017.
\n<\/strong>Level 1, Philip Robinson Library, Newcastle University<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u2019s book collection in the Vital North Partnership blog<\/a>. It shows some of the less usual children\u2019s books and manuscripts in his Collection and relate many of them to Brian\u2019s career as writer, translator, and editor.\u00a0 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\u00a0Mother Goose\u2019s Melody\u00a0<\/em>and Joseph Ritson with his\u00a0Gammer Gurton\u2019s Garland<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u00a0honorary degree<\/a>\u00a0by Newcastle University, recognising his work on the history of children’s books.\u00a0Find out more about Brian and his work on the\u00a0Brian Alderson website<\/a>, or view the items from Brian\u2019s collection that have already been catalogued on\u00a0Newcastle University\u2019s Library Search.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Brian Alderson at home in front of his book collection<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

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\u00a0Library. An accompanying exhibition catalogue is also available, which provides more detail about the items.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Boreman and Newbery<\/span><\/h1>\n

For well over a hundred years the eighteenth century bookseller John Newbery in St Paul\u2019s Church-Yard has been the cynosure of the collecting fraternity. It was he who established a steady output of children\u2019s books sufficient to prove to the trade that this could be a new and profitable line of business.<\/p>\n

While Newbery\u2019s most famous books are rare they are probably less so than his important predecessor, Thomas Boreman, who\u2019s Gigantick Histories <\/em>began to come out a year or two before any of Newbery\u2019s books. I had never thought to own one of these tiny volumes which stand at the true beginnings of the regular children\u2019s book trade, but Thomas Boreman\u2019s Curiosities of the Tower of London<\/em>, came to me through an extraordinarily lucky purchase from a bookseller\u2019s catalogue at a price whose modesty I found unbelievable.<\/p>\n

THOMAS BOREMAN<\/strong>
\nCuriosities of the Tower of London
\n<\/em>1741<\/strong><\/p>\n

The prelims include Boreman\u2019s celebrated rhymed puff on the theme that \u2018Tom Thumb shall now be thrown away\u2019 in favour of \u2018something to please and form the mind\u2019 which is followed by a 14-page list of \u2018Subscribers to this Work\u2019, 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\u2019s menagerie.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Title page from ‘Curiosities in the Tower of London<\/em>‘<\/p><\/div>\n

Anon
\n<\/strong>The Story of Goody Two Shoes<\/strong>
\n<\/em>1940<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Front cover of ‘The Story of Goody Two Shoes<\/em>‘<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

Nursery Rhymes<\/span><\/h1>\n

I first met Peter Opie round about 1967 when we were forming what was to become the Children\u2019s 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 \u2018the Museum\u2019.<\/p>\n

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

Tom Thumb\u2019s 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.
\n<\/em>No date [ca. 1810]<\/strong><\/p>\n

The prodigious title belies the extreme simplicity of the two chapbooks, the first consisting simply of the two alphabets \u2018A was an Archer\u2019 and \u2018A was an Ape\u2019, the second a series of six couplets (\u2018The Sun shines bright, \/ The Moon gives light.\u2019 etc.) followed, alas, by a 5-page catechism and a story on the rewards of learning to read which commends: \u2018Robinson 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…\u2019 <\/em>Although not including any rhymes from Tommy Thumb\u2019s Pretty Song-Book Volume II <\/em>these chapbooks may well draw upon the contents of the lost first volume.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Pages 8 and 9 from ‘Tom Thumbs Play Thing<\/em>‘<\/p><\/div>\n

Mother Goose\u2019s Melody; or, sonnets for the cradle. Containing the most celebrated songs and lullabies of the old British nurses. Embellished with many beautiful pictures.
\n<\/em>No date (Watermarks 1809 and 1810)<\/strong><\/p>\n

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 \u2018that sweet Songster… Master William Shakespeare\u2019. The earliest surviving copy, a facsimile of which is exhibited alongside this book, was published soon after Carnan\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Title page from ‘Mother Goose’s Melody<\/em>‘<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

Folk Tales<\/span><\/h1>\n

It was an interest in ballads, dating back to undergraduate days that encouraged my attention to the oral qualities in children\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

A fundamental influence on both theory and practice came when, in 1968, I was sent The English Fairy Tales <\/em>edited by Joseph Jacobs.<\/p>\n

ANDREW LANG,\u00a0Brian Alderson illustrated by John Lawrence<\/strong>
\nThe Blue Fairy Book<\/strong>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Joseph Jacobs was the inspiration for the editorial work that I undertook in \u2018refurbishing\u2019 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\u2019s (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 \u2018fairy tales\u2019. 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\u2019s work and attempt to replicate its notable position in \u2018the black-and-white\u2019 tradition (this occurred very successfully with later illustrators too).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Front cover from ‘Blue Fairy Book<\/em>‘<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

Hans Christian Anderson<\/span><\/h1>\n

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 \u2013 importantly \u2013 many of them draw directly upon Andersen\u2019s own voice as storyteller.<\/p>\n

The items give merely a glimpse of the challenge and enjoyment of the chase of collecting Hans Christian Andersen\u2019s stories.<\/p>\n

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSON [SIC]<\/strong>
\nWonderful Stories for Children
\n<\/em>1846<\/strong><\/p>\n

Published for Christmas 1845, this first English translation of the Eventir <\/em>advertises ten stories on the contents page. Thus, right at the beginning, we find liberties taken with poor old Andersen\u2019s texts. Leaving aside the misspelling of his name on the title-page, we also find a story called \u2018A Night in the Kitchen\u2019, which proves to be a passage excerpted from \u2018The Flying Trunk\u2019, one of Andersen\u2019s 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\u2019s unusual conversational lightness.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Title page from ‘Wonderful Stories for Children<\/em>‘<\/p><\/div>\n

(18) G[EORGE] N[ICOL]<\/strong>
\nThe Ugly Duck of Hans Christian Andersen
\n<\/em>1851<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u2019s The Three Bears<\/em>. In 1840 that was jokingly joined by a versification of the Grimms\u2019 Wolf and the Seven Little Kids <\/em>(probably based direct on the German version) and in 1841 the two stories were joined with a third on \u2018The Vizier and the Woodman\u2019. We do not know why it took George so long to catch up with Hans Christian Anderson, for The Ugly Duckling <\/em>was among the favourites of the 1846 tranche of translations.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Pages 6 and 17 from ‘The Ugly Duckk of Hans Christian Anderson<\/em>‘<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

Verses<\/span><\/h1>\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

The Butterfly\u2019s Birth-Day, St. Valentine\u2019s Day. And Madam Whale\u2019s Ball, poems to amuse and instruct the rising generation.
\n<\/em>1808<\/strong><\/p>\n

Three sets of verses, the first signed \u2018A. D. M.\u2019, preoccupied, as with the founding party-poem, with crews of animals attending first the butterfly\u2019s birth, bursting out of its chrysalis, second pairs of creatures on a Valentine\u2019s parade and third various sea creatures aiming to emulate the (earlier published) \u2018elephant\u2019s rout\u2019. Mechanical stuff, although it is good to know that some little fellows got to the birthday:<\/p>\n

From Chester and Stilton, by waggons and stages,
\n<\/em>Trav\u2019ling snug in old cheeses, by land and by sea,
\n<\/em>Congregations of Jumpers and Mites of all ages,
\n<\/em>Fast arrived at the spot the new marvel to see.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Title page from ‘The Butterfly\u2019s Birth-Day, St. Valentine\u2019s Day. And Madam Whale\u2019s Ball, poems to amuse and instruct the rising generation’<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

EDWARD LEAR<\/strong>
\nA Book of Nonsense
\n<\/em>1862<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Front cover from ‘A Book of Nonsense<\/em>‘<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

Humphrey Milford, OUP and The Water Babies<\/em><\/span><\/h1>\n

On the day that I bought H.R.Millar\u2019s The Dreamland Express <\/em>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.<\/p>\n

The Little Old Woman of X
\n<\/em>No date [?1916]<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Front cover from ‘The Little Old Woman of X’<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Another interest of mine is in Charles Kingsley\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019s text.<\/p>\n

CHARLES KINGSLEY<\/strong>
\nThe Water-Babies; a fairy tale for a land-baby
\n<\/em>1863<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Front cover from ‘The Water-Babies; a fairy tale for a land-baby’<\/p><\/div>\n

Below are\u00a02 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\u2019s drawing is ruined by both the printing and the paper of the published edition.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

2 holograph line drawings by Harold Jones for pages 33 and 107<\/p><\/div>\n

WALT DISNEY<\/strong>
\nThe Water Babies [2-colour vignette]
\n<\/em>No date [ca. 1936]<\/strong><\/p>\n

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 \u2013 it looks nowadays to be quite a scarce volume.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Front cover from ‘The Water Babies<\/em>‘<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018A Lilliputian Miscellany\u2019 now open to the public June \u2013 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 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5894,"featured_media":1218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[185],"tags":[286,285,255,23],"class_list":["post-1213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibitions","tag-books","tag-brian-alderson","tag-childrens-illustration","tag-childrens-literature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/speccoll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/speccoll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/speccoll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/speccoll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5894"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/speccoll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1213"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/speccoll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1241,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/speccoll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213\/revisions\/1241"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/speccoll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/speccoll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/speccoll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/speccoll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}