"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 FROM "THE HONEY STEW" BY HARRISON WEIR (JEREMIAH HOW. 1846)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 Æsop and others" (Newcastle: T. Saint, 1784) deserves fuller notice, but Æsop, 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.
"BLUE BEARD." ILLUSTRATION FROM "COMIC NURSERY TALES." BY A. CROWQUILL (G. ROUTLEDGE. 1845)"BLUE BEARD." ILLUSTRATION FROM "COMIC NURSERY TALES." BY A. CROWQUILL (G. ROUTLEDGE. 1845)
"Goody Two Shoes" was also published by Newbery of St. Paul's Churchyard—the pioneer of children's literature. His business—which afterwardsbecame 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 theLondon Chronicle, December 19 to January 1, 1765, Mr. Welsh reprinted the following advertisement:
"ROBINSON CRUSOE." ILLUSTRATION FROM "COMIC NURSERY TALES." BY A. CROWQUILL (G. ROUTLEDGE. 1845)"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 theAthenæumcalled 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.
ILLUSTRATION FROM "ROBINSON CRUSOE." BY CHARLES KEENE (JAMES BURNS. 1847)ILLUSTRATION FROM "ROBINSON CRUSOE." BY CHARLES KEENE (JAMES BURNS. 1847)
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 "Æsop'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.
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 FROM "COMIC NURSERY TALES" (G. ROUTLEDGE. 1846)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.
TITLE-PAGE FROM "THE SCOURING OF THE WHITE HORSE." BY RICHARD DOYLE (MACMILLAN AND CO. 1858)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 anuntidy, 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 Germanmärchen(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 (REDUCED) FROM "MISUNDERSTOOD" BY GEORGE DU MAURIER (RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON. 1874)ILLUSTRATION (REDUCED) FROM "MISUNDERSTOOD" BY GEORGE DU MAURIER (RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON. 1874)
But for many years before the Victorian period folklore was left to the 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 FROM "THE PRINCESS AND THE GOBLIN." (STRAHAN. 1871. NOW PUBLISHED BY BLACKIE AND SON)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, "Keeperin 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 FROM "GUTTA PERCHA WILLIE." BY ARTHUR HUGHES (STRAHAN. 1870. NOW PUBLISHED BY BLACKIE AND SON)ILLUSTRATION FROM "GUTTA PERCHA WILLIE." BY ARTHUR HUGHES (STRAHAN. 1870. NOW PUBLISHED BY BLACKIE AND SON)
ILLUSTRATION FROM "AT THE BACK OF THE NORTH WIND." BY ARTHUR HUGHES (STRAHAN. 1869. NOW PUBLISHED BY BLACKIE AND SON)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 firstof 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 FROM "AT THE BACK OF THE NORTH WIND." BY ARTHUR HUGHES (STRAHAN. 1869. NOW PUBLISHED BY BLACKIE AND SON)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 marvellousincomparison with all before, and no little after.
ILLUSTRATION FROM "THE LITTLE WONDER HORN." BY J. MAHONEY (H. S. KING AND CO. 1872. GRIFFITH AND FARRAN. 1887)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, theirdiablerieand 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 amountpaid 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 £12 12s.
"IN NOOKS WITH BOOKS"AN AUTO-LITHOGRAPH BYR. ANNING BELL"IN NOOKS WITH BOOKS"
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 FROM "SPEAKING LIKENESSES." BY ARTHUR HUGHES (MACMILLAN AND CO. 1874)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 ofPunchwhen 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 ofPunchis 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. Butthe 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 FROM "UNDINE." BY SIR JOHN TENNIEL (JAMES BURNS. 1845)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 FROM "ELLIOTT'S NURSERY RHYMES" BY W. J. WIEGAND (NOVELLO, 1870)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 occasionalterrible 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 FROM "ELLIOTT'S NURSERY RHYMES" BY H. STACY MARKS, R.A. (NOVELLO. 1870)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 FROM "THE WATER BABIES" BY SIR R. NOEL PATON (MACMILLAN AND CO. 1863)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 inillustrating 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.
ILLUSTRATION FROM "THE ROYAL UMBRELLA." BY LINLEY SAMBOURNE (GRIFFITH AND FARRAN. 1880)ILLUSTRATION FROM "THE ROYAL UMBRELLA." BY LINLEY SAMBOURNE (GRIFFITH AND FARRAN. 1880)
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 FROM "ON A PINCUSHION." BY WILLIAM DE MORGAN (SEELEY, JACKSON AND HALLIDAY. 1877)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 FROM "THE NECKLACE OF PRINCESS FIORIMONDE." BY WALTER CRANE (MACMILLAN AND CO. 1880)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—à laIngoldsby, 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 findfor 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 theFineArts.
ILLUSTRATION FROM "HOUSEHOLD STORIES FROM GRIMM." BY WALTER CRANE (MACMILLAN AND CO. 1882)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 æsthetic 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 theDaily 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, 4s.6d.; "Raffaelle's Bible Events," six pictures from the Loggia, drawn on stone by Mr. Linnell's children and coloured by them, 5s.6d.; "Albert Dürer's Bible Events," six pictures from Dürer'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, 4s.6d., coloured; "The Ballad of Sir Hornbook," by Thos. Love Peacock, with eight pictures by H. Corbould, coloured, 4s.6d.(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, 4s.6d.; "Puck'sReports to Oberon"; Four new Faëry 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, 3s.6d.; "Beauty and the Beast," with four pictures by J. C. Horsley, R.A., coloured, 3s.6d.; "Jack and the Bean Stalk," with four pictures by C. W. Cope, R.A., coloured, 3s.6d.; "Cinderella," with four pictures by E. H. Wehnert, coloured, 3s.6d.; "Jack the Giant Killer," with four pictures by C. W. Cope, coloured, 3s.6d.; "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, 31s.6d.; "A Century of Fables," with pictures by the old masters.
ILLUSTRATION FROM "A WONDER BOOK FOR GIRLS AND BOYS." BY WALTER CRANE (OSGOOD, MCILVAINE AND CO. 1892)ILLUSTRATION FROM "A WONDER BOOK FOR GIRLS AND BOYS." BY WALTER CRANE (OSGOOD, MCILVAINE AND CO. 1892)
To this list should be added—if it is not by "Felix Summerley," it is evidently conceived by the same spirit and published also by Cundall—"Gammer Gurton's Garland," by Ambrose Merton, with illustrations by T. Webster and others. This was also issued as a series of sixpenny books, of which Mr. Elkin Mathews owns a nearly complete set, in their original covers of gold and coloured paper.
It would be very easy to over-estimate the intrinsic merit of these books, but when you consider them as pioneers it would be hard to over-rate the importance of the new departure. To enlist the talent of the most popular artists of the period, and produce volumes printed in the best style of the Chiswick Press, with bindings and end-papers specially designed, and the whole "get up" of the book carefully considered, was certainly a bold innovation in the early forties. That it failed to be a profitable venture one may deduce from the fact that the "Felix Summerley" series did not run to many volumes, and that the firm who published them, after several changes, seems to have expired, or more possibly was incorporated with some other venture. The books themselves are forgotten by most booksellers to-day,as I have discovered from many fruitless demands for copies.
The little square pamphlets by F. H. Bayley, to which allusion has already been made, include "Blue Beard;" "Robinson Crusoe," and "Red Riding Hood," all published about 1845-6.
ILLUSTRATION FROM "THE QUEEN OF THE PIRATE ISLE." BY KATE GREENAWAY (EDMUND EVANS. 1887)ILLUSTRATION FROM "THE QUEEN OF THE PIRATE ISLE." BY KATE GREENAWAY (EDMUND EVANS. 1887)
Whether "The Sleeping Beauty," then announced as in preparation, was published, I do not know. Their rhyming chronicle in the style of the "Ingoldsby Legends" is neatly turned, and the topical allusions, although out of date now, are not sufficiently frequent to make it unintelligible. The pictures (possibly by Alfred Crowquill) are conceived in a spirit of burlesque, and are full of ingenious conceits and no little grim vigour. The design of Robinson Crusoe roosting in a tree—
And so he climbs up a very tall tree,And fixes himself to his comfort and glee,Hung up from the end of a branch by his breech,Quite out of all mischievous quadrupeds' reach.A position not perfectly easy 't is true,But yet at the same time consoling and new—
reproduced onp. 13, shows the wilder humour of the illustrations. Another of Blue Beard, and one of the wolf suffering from undigested grandmother, are also given. They need no comment, except to note that in the originals, printed on a coloured tint with the high lights left white, the ferocity of Blue Beard is greatly heightened. The wolf, "as he lay there brimful of grandmother and guilt," is one of the best of the smaller pictures in the text.
Other noteworthy books which appeared about this date are Mrs. Felix Summerley's "Mother's Primer," illustrated by W. M[ulready?], Longmans, 1843; "Little Princess," by Mrs. John Slater, 1843, with six charming lithographs by J. C. Horsley, R.A. (one of which is reproduced onp. 11); the "Honey Stew," of the Countess Bertha Jeremiah How, 1846, with coloured plates by Harrison Weir; "Early Days of English Princes," with capital illustrations by John Franklin; and a series of Pleasant Books for Young Children, 6d.plain and 1s.coloured, published by Cundall and Addey.
ILLUSTRATION FROM "LITTLE FOLKS" BY KATE GREENAWAY (CASSELL AND CO.)ILLUSTRATION FROM "LITTLE FOLKS" BY KATE GREENAWAY (CASSELL AND CO.)
In 1846 appeared a translation of De La Motte Fouqué's romances, "Undine" being illustrated by John Tenniel, jun., and the following volumes by J. Franklin, H. C. Selous, and other artists. The Tenniel designs, as the frontispiece reproduced onp. 20shows clearly, are interesting both in themselves and as the earliest published work of the famousPunchcartoonist. The strong German influence they show is also apparent in nearly all the decorations. "The Juvenile Verse andPicture Book" (1848), also contains designs by Tenniel, and others by W. B. Scott and Sir John Gilbert. The ideal they established is maintained more or less closely for a long period. "Songs for Children" (W. S. Orr, 1850); "Young England's Little Library" (1851); Mrs. S. C. Hall's "Number One," with pictures by John Absolon (1854); "Stories about Dogs," with "plates by Thomas Landseer" (Bogue,c.1850); "The Three Bears," illustrated by Absolon and Harrison Weir (Addey and Co., no date); "Nursery Poetry" (Bell and Daldy, 1859), may be noted as typical examples of this period.