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Case 1: TOYS FOR CHILDREN & CHRISTMAS GREETINGS

Harlequinades, and peepshows began appearing in the second half of the 18th. Century. Mechanical books with simple mechanisms were made popular by the British publisher Dean in the 1850's and, along with Tuck and Nister, produced lovely moveables contemporaneous with the German illustrator, Lothar Meggendorfer (1847-1925). What distinguished Lothar Meggendorfer's books and what has come to be regarded as his "genius" was his ability to create mechanical books with intricate and realistic movements that had both humour and grace. The City Park: A Reproduction of an Antique Stand-up Book (originally published in Munich in 1887) is a 1981 reproduction of one of his ingenious pop-out panoramas that appear to be deceptively simple book-size objects when closed, only to become astonishing multi-dimensional detailed fold-out panoramas. He was very successful in his own lifetime, and his books were published in many countries.

The Anne of Green Gables Pop-up Dollhouse (paper engineering by Rick Morrison, illustrations by Richard Row, published by Key Porter Books, 1994) is a house-shaped pop-up book with eight rooms filled with accurate details from the farmhouse that helped to inspire L. M. Montgomery to create Anne of Green Gables. The dollhouse comes with five paper dolls of Anne, Diana, Gilbert, Matthew and Marilla.

One of the greatest literary fairy tales is Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking Glass (1872). Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: A Pop-up Book (designer John Strejan, paper engineer James Roger Diaz, illustrated by Jenny Thorne after Sir John Tenniel, published by Dell, ca. 1990), reproduces three-dimensionally some of the scenes from the first book. Tenniel's illustrations "represent the highest art of illustration."

In addition to the books, we have a Peter Rabbit cup, representative of the dishes Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) herself popularised, and some stuffed toys. Raggedy Anne and Golliwogg accompany Winnie-the-Pooh and Teddy Bear. Teddy Bears are celebrating their 100th birthday this year!

A selection of seasonal greeting cards from Rare Books and Special Collections albums of greeting cards add a Christmas touch to this display. These are of the postcard style, and date from 1907-1910, except for a New Year's card, which may be Victorian.

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Case 2: ILLUSTRATED BOOKS BY NOTED ILLUSTRATORS

The "Golden Age" of illustration spanned the years 1870-1930, aided by the development of practical photography and photolithography. The most memorable body of illustrated books for children in the latter half of the nineteenth century came from the presses of the gifted London printer Edmund Evans. He perfected a process of colour printing from wood blocks in 1856, and invited three artists to join him in producing a series of picture books for children, known as toy books. The three artists were Randolph Caldecott, Walter Crane, and Kate Greenaway. They have come to be looked upon as the founders of the picture book tradition in English and American picture books.

Randolph Caldecott (1846-1886) was the greatest of the three. His special attributes are superb control of line, making it move, leap and soar, and his ability to extend the meaning of text, to extend and to enliven it. Here we have his version of the story of The Babes in the Wood (1879), and Daddy Darwin's Dovecote by Juliana Horatia Ewing (1841-1885).

Walter Crane (1845-1915) draws unmistakable boundaries, setting them off with contrasting masses of colour. He was concerned with design, as well as with colour, both the design of the whole page as well as the picture on the page. We have his Pothooks and Perseverance (1886) and a manuscript version for a mock-up of the book. Like Caldecott and others, Crane illustrated books by other people, such as Mrs. Molesworth's A Christmas Child: A Sketch of a Boy-life (1880).

Kate Greenaway (1846-1901) was the happy combination of author-artist that accounts for the success of many present-day picture books. In Under the Window (1878) and Marigold Garden (1885), she wrote the verse that graces the pages she designed and illustrated. She is matchless in charm and delicacy, without the weakness of sentimentality.

Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) is probably the best known of these artists. Many of his books are still being reprinted and enjoyed by people young and old today. "To truly appreciate his skill and talent, there is nothing that compares to the quality of printing and sharpness of reproduction that appears in the limited editions and first editions of his works." The publication of The Zankiwank and the Bletherwitch in 1896 demonstrated the beginning of the style that made Rackham famous. Rip Van Winkle (1905) was the first of a series of lavishly illustrated books, most of which were published in signed and limited editions as well as in cloth bound trade editions. The limited editions were usually specially bound in vellum, most were signed by Rackham, and several had additional colour plates not found in the regular edition. The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm (1909) is a limited edition signed by Rackham, in an inlaid morocco binding, acquired for the Arkley Collection in honour of Dr. Sheila Egoff's 80th. birthday. The last of many popular titles was Barrie's Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens that was published posthumously in 1940.

Edmund Dulac (1882-1875) was born in Toulouse, France, studied law for two years before enrolling full-time in the Ecole des Beaux Arts. In 1904 he moved to England, just as the process known as "colour separation" made it possible to mass-produce colour images, and by 1905 the process was improved to create images that were very faithful to the original. He was primarily a painter, and used the new technology's ability to reproduce exact tones to let the colour hold the shape and define the object. His illustrations, minutely detailed and lavish as the art of Persia which influenced him, became fashionable among adult collectors. Here we see his illustrated editions of Andersen's The Snow Queen and Other Stories (1911) and Quiller-Couch's The Sleeping Beauty and Other Fairy Tales from the Old French (1910).

Willy Pogany (1882-1955) was born in Hungary, and studied at the Art School in Budapest before going to Paris about 1905. The following year he moved to England, where Rackham's Rip Van Winkle had taken the country by storm, and every publisher was desperate to duplicate its success. Pogany was gifted with many styles from which he selected the appropriate one, or created a new one, for each book he illustrated. His first book, The Welsh Fairy Book for T. Fisher Unwin, was originally intended to compete with the H. J. Ford Fairy Books, but the paintings and talents of the now Anglicised Pogany coupled with the success of Rackham's book seem to have moulded it into an amalgam of the old-style Ford books and the modern colour-plate books. Gask's The Fairies and the Christmas Child (1912) has both colour and black and white plates. Children at the North Pole, in the Willy Pogany Children series, was published in 1912. In 1936 he illustrated a collection of three stories, How Santa Found the Cobbler's Shop by Margaretta Harmon, The Cardboard Castle by Jean Muir, and The Town of the Clock Makers by Loretta Moore, all published under the title of the first. Each story has a full-page colour illustration, plus black and white sketches and decorations on every page.

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Case 3: SOME OLD FAVOURITES

Nonsense takes the common rules of logic, order, authority, or manners and stands them on their heads. It emerged in the 19th. century as an anarchic means of shedding the straightjacket of English society. The Victorian era produced giants of the art and set an enduring standard of excellence. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898), an Oxford don writing under the name Lewis Carroll, used his training in mathematics and logic to create two whole worlds of nonsense. In writing the many curious verses sprinkled throughout Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking Glass (1872), he turned his academically trained imagination to the creation of brilliantly methodical illogic, entertaining Victorian children with witty parodies of verses they grew up reciting.

The Alice One Hundred Collection contains over 500 books and other items including other works by Carroll in addition to Alice in various editions, and a number of parodies. In addition, there are a number of editions in other collections in RBSC. Alice's Adventures Under Ground (1932) is the first American edition. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1904) has coloured plates by Maria L. Kirk in addition to black and white illustrations by Tenniel. Another edition was illustrated by Mabel Lucie Attwell by the British publisher of children's books, Raphael Tuck & Sons. Ltd. The American publisher of popular children's books, McLoughlin Brothers, published an edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (1946) is an American edition of the two books combined.

With The Wonderful World of Oz (1900), Lyman Frank Baum (1856-1919) became the first American writer to create a full-length unforgettable fantasy. It began a publishing phenomenon. There has been nothing in all children's literature to match the commercial success of the Oz books. Baum published fourteen, and another twenty-seven were published by others after his death, until 1963. John Rea Neill (1877-1943) is chiefly noted at the illustrator of the Oz books from 1904 through 1939. He wrote and illustrated three Oz books in 1940-1942. The Tin Woodman of Oz was published in 1918.

The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902) by Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) is one of the best loved of all the nursery classics. It was originally written in the form of a letter to amuse a little invalid boy, the five-year old son of her former German governess. She illustrated the letter with pen-and-ink sketches. The boy loved the story and cherished the letter. Years later Beatrix borrowed the letter, copied the drawings and added more, and extended the story. Six publishers turned it down, so she had 450 copies privately printed. Frederick Warne and Company finally published the book with coloured illustrations, and the fame of Peter Rabbit spread rapidly. Another of her more than twenty stories was The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck (1908). At the time of her death in 1943, the Peter Rabbit had been translated into five languages and sold several million copies. It is one of the best of her stories.

Alan Alexander Milne (1882-1956) was known as the author of adult novels and a playwright before he wrote the children's books that brought him world-wide fame. Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) and its sequel The House at Pooh Corner (1928) are the most famous books about toy animals ever written. Milne's craftsmanship lay in his ability to make the animals come alive as toys, not as animals. Ernest Howard Shepard (1879-1976) was fairly well known as an artist, illustrator and cartoonist before his illustrations of A. A. Milne's children's books increased his fame. His genius lies in his simple use of line. The Christopher Robin Story Book: from: When We Were Very Young, Now We are Six, Winnie-the-Pooh, The House at Pooh Corner was published in 1929. The official residence of Christopher Robin's stuffed animals is now a glass case in New York Public Library.

The original Winnie was a black bear cub bought for $20.00 from a hunter at White River, Ontario, by Captain Harry Colebourn, a Winnipeg veterinarian with the Fort Garry Horse. He took the bear to England's Salisbury Plains where Canada's Second Brigade were training. When the regiment departed for the Front, the bear, which was named "Winnipeg," nicknamed "Winnie," was left with the London Zoo, where he became a hit with zoo-goers, including A. A. Milne and his son, Christopher Robin. Their visits inspired first Winnie-the-Pooh and then The House at Pooh Corner. In 1981 a bronze statue of Winnie was unveiled at the London Zoo. In 1999 a party of officers and men from the 34th. Fort Garry Horse visited London Zoo and unveiled a bronze sculpture of Colbourn and Winnie. A copy of this statue also stands in the Winnipeg Zoo.

In The Wind in the Willows (1908), Kenneth Grahame (1859-1932) was more than telling bedtime stories to his young son. He was also entertaining himself with tales set on his beloved river, and sharing his observation and wit with a receptive yet demanding audience. His five childhood years spent in the unspoiled Thames country of Cookham Dene in Berkshire became the riverbank world of Mole and Ratty. The book was originally illustrated by Ernest Howard Shepard (1879-1976), who later gained fame illustrating Winnie-the-Pooh. Grahame provided a new kind of animal fantasy, which combined elements of the traditional beast fable with social satire.

This edition of The Night Before Christmas by Clement Clarke Moore (1779-1863) was published in London by Ernest Nister about 1891. It includes "The Night After Christmas." This poem is known under various titles: 'Twas the Night Before Christmas; The Night Before Chrismas; A Visit from St. Nicholas. This ballad is generally believed to have been written in 1822 for Moore's two daughters, Margaret and Charity, and later anonymously published in the Troy [New York] Sentinel on 23 December 1823. However, according to Don Foster, in his book Author Unknown: On the Trail of Anonymous (New York: Holt, 2000), Moore could not have been the author. Through careful analysis, he concludes that the probable author was Major Henry Livingston Jr. (1748-1828), and that Moore had written another, almost forgotten, Christmas piece, Old Santeclaus. Livingston, a distant relative of the presidents Bush, was a member of a prominent family in Poughkeepsie, New York. Known for his encyclopaedic knowledge and his love of literature, Livingston was a farmer, surveyor and Justice of the Peace. He joined the Revolutionary Army in 1775, and accompanied his cousin's husband, General Montgomery, in his campaign up the Hudson River to invade Canada. Following the war, he was a Commissioner of Sequestration, appropriating the lands owned by British loyalists and selling them for the revolutionary cause. He published most of his work after his first wife's death in 1783, either anonymously or under the pseudonym "R". He remarried ten years later, and had twelve children altogether. His work was published in many journals. Livingston's most famous poem, A Visit from St. Nicholas, which Foster dates to Christmas 1807 or 1808, was published by Moore with his own collected poems in 1844.

The Roosevelt Bears: Their Travels and Adventures by Seymour Eaton (1859-1916), illustrated by V. Floyd Campbell, was published in Philadelphia by E. Stern in 1906. The Teddy Bear, so loved by children of all ages, first made its appearance 100 years ago, and is named for American President Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt (1858-1919). In November 1902 Roosevelt went on a four day bear hunt in Mississippi. Some of his companions ran ahead when the hunting dogs picked up a scent. When he arrived on the scene, he discovered a bear tied to a tree with a rope. The President would neither shoot the bear, nor permit it to be shot. When news of his decision got out, a famous political cartoonist, Clifford Berryman, released his interpretation of the event as a cartoon, and the rest is history! The Teddy Bear was born and has lived in our hearts for 100 years. Another bear book, The Little Toy Bearkins by John Howard Jewett (1843-1925) was published in London by Nister, and in New York by Dutton about 1906.

Robert Louis Stevenson, along with Christina Rossetti and A. A. Milne, reflects a new awareness of childhood as a sphere apart from the adult world, and capitalizes on children's interest in their own day-to-day lives and interests. Stevenson's empathy with children's thoughts and feelings, and his ability to recall the immediacy of childhood experience enrich his energetic and tuneful poetry in A Child's Garden of Verse (1885). So pervasive was his influence that a host of children's poets copied his mannerisms, failing to capture his essence. This edition was illustrated by American children's illustrator, Jessie Willcox Smith, and published by Scribner's in 1945.

The Golliwogg's Christmas by Bertha Upton (1849-1912), and illustrated by her daughter, Florence Kate Upton (1873-1922) was published in 1907. Bertha was the daughter of an English couple living in New York, where she studied art. Some time after her father died, the family returned to England. She continued her art studies, but was unable to attend art school in Paris. She freelanced as an illustrator for children's books, and for periodicals. She had a set of "penny woodens" and used one as a model for her first cartoon for Punch. This gave her the idea to write her own children's book. The Golliwogg was introduced into the plot by chance. The colourful figure was based upon a black minstrel doll bought at a fair in the U.S. The doll was found in the attic of the family's London home after Florence had begun working on her book. She introduced the large rag doll into her story, and named it the Golliwogg. It became the star of the story, and remained so to the end of the series, published for the Christmas market, from 1895 to 1912. The books were initially undertaken to finance her art training in Paris, and achieved their goal. Afterwards, Florence became a successful society portrait painter.

The unfailingly gallant Golliwogg was the instigator of the dolls' adventures, which usually ended in minor catastrophes for him. The story settings were always contemporary, often involving recent technology, including airships. Upton was the first to create a black children's hero. It remained popular in England until well after World War II, and was even used for marketing jams until 1980 when the promotion became embroiled in an outcry about racism. The penny-wooden Dutch dolls and the Golliwogg are now in the Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood in London. Many others exploited the Upton Golliwogg, often dropping the final "g" in order to lessen the risk of legal challenge. Golliwogg dolls became enormously popular in the nursery where, in 1903, they were soon joined by the first "Teddy Bears."

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Case 4: A SELECTION OF CHRISTMAS CHILDREN'S BOOKS, OLD AND NEW

Some two dozen Christmas books have been selected from about 150 in the collection. They range in time from The Yule Log by Louis Alexis Chamerovzow (London: T. C. Newby, 1847) to a modern story for young children, Little Mouse Meets Santa by Harriet Ziefert, with pictures by Claire Schumacher (1995), wherein Little Mouse pays a visit to Santa, then eagerly awaits his visit on Christmas Eve.

Aunt Louisa's Germs of Kindness: Comprising Home Kindness; Santa Claus; Kindness to Animals, was published in New York by McLoughlin Brothers in the 1880s, has eighteen pages of illustrations printed in colour. Thomas Nast (1840-1902) "invented" this depiction of Santa Claus first published in Harper's Weekly in 1863. Nast was a young and rising political cartoonist of 22, with had little formal schooling or artistic training, when he drew his first Christmas picture for the January 3, 1863, issue of Harper's Weekly, and, until Christmas Day, 1886, he set aside his formidable political battles to provide his annual gift for the journal's readers. Nast was the artist who established what Santa Claus looks like, as opposed to Father Christmas that was the popular image at the time.

Snap-dragons, a Tale of Christmas Eve, and Old Father Christmas, an Old-fashioned Tale of the Young Days of a Grumpy Old Godfather [1888], by Juliana Horatia Ewing (1841-1995). It is illustrated by Gordon Browne (1853-1932), and engraved and printed by Edmund Evans (1826-1905). The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge published many books for children, a number of which were by Ewing. She and her husband, who was with the British Army, lived in Fredericton in 1867-1869. He wrote music while she wrote children's stories.

Other 19th. Century stories include: Old Christmas, from the Sketch Book of Washington Irving, illustrated by R. Caldecott (London: Macmillan, 1876); Christmas with Grandma Elsie by Martha Finley Farquharson (London: Routledge, [1889]); Nellie's Christmas Eve by Miss Fanny Wight (New York: McLoughlin Bros., [189-?]); Sidney Martin's Christmas by Pansy (London: Ward, Lock & Co., [1896?]); The Delft Cat, and Other Stories by Robert Howard Russell, illustrated by F. Berkeley Smith (New York: R. H. Russell, 1896); Betty Leicester's Christmas by Sarah Orne Jewett (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1899); Santa Claus's Partner by Thomas Nelson Page, illustrated by W. Glackens (New York: Scribner, 1899); An Old Fashioned Christmas Day by Washington Irving, pictured in colour by Cecil Aldin (London: Hodder & Stoughton, [1900?]).

From the early 20th. Century we have: The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum, with many pictures by Mary Cowles Clark (Indianapolis: Bowen-Merrill, 1902); Denslow's Night Before Christmas by Clement Clarke Moore, made into a book and illustrated by W. W. Denslow in 1902 (New York: G. W. Dillingham, 1902); Sonny: A Christmas Guest by Ruth McEnergy Stuart (New York: The Century, 1904, c1896); A Journey in Search of Christmas by Owen Wister illustrated by Frederic Remington (Toronto: Musson, 1904); The Child's Christmas with text by Evelyn Sharp, pictured by Charles Robinson (London: Blackie, [1906?]); Christmas A B C (New York: Saalfield, 1910); The Bird's Christmas Carol by Kate Douglas Wiggin, illustrated by Francis E. Hiley (Toronto: Musson Book, [191-?]); The Blue Grass Seminary Girls' Christmas Holidays, or, A Four Weeks' Tour with the Glee Club by Carolyn Judson Burnett (New York: A. L Burt, 1916; Miss Muffet's Christmas Party by Samuel McChord Crothers, with a foreword by Anne Caroll Moore (Anniversary ed., Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1930).

Some more recent stories are: The Night Before Christmas by Clement Clarke Moore illustrated by Arthur Rackham (New York: Weathervane Books, 1976); The O'Sullivan Kids' Christmas Adventure written by Jan P. Nablo, illustrated by James B. Lombard (Vancouver: Benchmark, [1984]; A Carol for Children: A Poem by Ogden Nash (Vancouver: Winter Lily Press, [1984]); Benny Rabbit and the Christmas Wishes by Lloyd A. Almond (Langley, 1985); Chinook Christmas: Story by Rudy Wiebe, paintings by David More (Red Deer, 1992).

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Acknowledgements

Information on the books displayed here has been compiled from various sources. Special thanks must go to Dr. Judith Saltman and her book, The Riverside Anthology of Children's Literature, Sixth Edition (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1985).

© December 2002 UBC Library - Rare Books and Special Collections

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