THE FAIRCHILD FAMILY
The Fairchild Family. By Mrs. Sherwood. Edited by Mary E. Palgrave. Illustrated by Florence M. Rudland. (Wells Gardner and Co. 6s.)—In appraising the merits of old children's books it is necessary to remember that the nursery was not always as well looked after by authors as it is to-day,--although from Newbery onwards it seems to have been assiduously courted. We have to bear in mind that though books were many, their editions were probably small, and opportunities of buying them and despatch- ing them scarce. " One child, one book," must have been the rule for many of the early years of the last century in any but families in large towns. Remembering this, we may palliate many a book's dulness, and understand what it meant (dull as it was) in its own day, when it was all that there was between the child and bore- dom. Even this understanding, however, does not make The Fairchild Family a good book. We confess to a very pleasant feeling of anticipation when we opened the parcel and found Mrs. Sherwood's famous volume within it, for we had not read about the Fairchilds for many years, and remembered it only dimly as a quaint and fairly readable alternation of piety and naughtiness. But renewed acquaintance has been disappointing. We have sadly to express the opinion that The Fairchild Family is a poor thing. Making every allowance for the times in which it was written, it was, we think, a poor thing from the first. Its tone is wrong. Leaving aside the general question of the encouragement of self- righteousness which so many books of this class and period arouse, The Fairchild Family is mediocre. It is a book without imagination, without fancy, without fun. There is something almost squalid in its pedestrianism. We do not deny that children can be interested by the work, but the perusal will have no stimulating effect, satisfying rather a vulgar curiosity than a healthy interest, —the same kind of curiosity that keeps older people eager for Bow Bells novelettes. Other children's books of the period are now and then reprinted in order to enjoy in the nursery a succes de rire—such, for example, as Mrs. Turner's cautionary rhymes—but The Fairchild Family is too much pene- trated by religious matter (even in the present form, docked of many of the devotional passages) for this to be a desirable recep- tion for it. Opinions may differ, but the present writer would never give the book to a child in whom he was interested, not only because of the vein of pious snobbishness which runs through the work, separating the sheep and the goats, but also because a book for a child should have a quickening effect. In the major portion of The Fairchild Family—namely, the portion deal- ing with the Fairchilds—there is nothing that is quickening. The interpolated stories are certainly better. We are sorry to have to say this, because the edition has been very carefully pre- pared : Miss Palgrave has written a charming account of Mrs. Sherwood to precede it, and Miss Rudland has drawn a number of very dainty pictures worthy of better material.
Previous page
