Eminent Victorians CHILDREN'S BOOKS

CLEMENT FREUD

The history of children's books is loosely bound up with the history of children.

When the ideal child was seen and not heard it was naturally not written for. Some time after

this it was realised that if children were not to be heard, giving them something to read made them that much more inaudible—so they were given a book called The Bible (Eyre and Spottis- woode 19s 6d). This was not altogether success- ful and when grown-ups read The Bible and found how unsuitable parts of it were, they took the book from the children and put it into hotel rooms.

And so in the nineteenth century people were procured to write specially for children.

They wrote the same sort of things that people wrote for adults, but they put in a lot of 'reallys' and 'well nows' and `rathers' and `oh my goodness me, didn't he just' . . . and left out sex.

Resultant efforts were sold to fond aunts and careless mothers; some of the writers used their own names, but the majority used pseudonyms because writing for children had about it a certain social stigma. 'Poor dear, she writes books for children' was akin to having to take in washing.

Publishers were no help. They would say: 'This is a very nice little book and the children will like it a lot . . . we shall pay you half as much as we pay real writers.'

To this day Bac and Independent Television have a lower scale of payment for children's programmes than they do for adults so that children's writers, unless entirely dedicated or limited, tend to graduate to other forms of literature.

In spite of this some very notable children's successes adorn the nation's libraries. There was E. Nesbit, a natural writer for the young, and Rudyard Kipling, whose empire-building, soldier-laddie approach was always closer to the hearts of children than, say, Indian intel- lectuals.

But the really successful books were written on two levels so that both purchaser and reader were able to obtain satisfaction.

By and large the books that have not worked were those which were consciously written down: books by authors who could be felt groping for a monosyllabic word when a three- syllable one was so much more apposite . . . or do I mean right? An interesting aspect of early children's books is that children—like sex, which invariably came before them—were often considered unsuitable subjects for chil- dren's books.

The early volumes were written about things —like fairies or hobgoblins or scarecrows with social consciences; alternatively about young adults, who came into the uncle/auntie as opposed to mummy/daddy category in order that parents should not be presented with evi- dence of their inadequacy.

But the real crux of the children's book prob- lem was the deep-rooted conflict of interest be- tween publisher, purchaser and reader.

Publishers of children's books think' small; purchasers care more for suitability of subject- matter, boldness of print and quality of illustra-

tions, while readers want only to lose themselves by the middle of page one.

In these prosperous times in which we live a number of publishing houses have recently re- issued 'classics.' Gollancz have dug deep and, under the editorship of Gillian Avery, have come up with what wine auctioneers call an 'end of bin' catalogue at 15s a go.

There is a volume called Victoria Bess and Others which contains three stories about dolls. The title story, by a lady who hides under the name of 'Brenda,' is the longest; a stilted morality tale written in the first person singular by a doll who had 'lips and cheeks "oh! ruddier than a cherry's!"' She who had ears like deli- cate little pink shells adorned a window in Regent Street.

And was an odious snob. Having nar- rowly missed being purchased by the Prince of Wales she was suitably indignant about being admired by a child who dropped her aitches and said 'Lor' and ends up sixty-one pages later in a home for poor children with a period Bisto kid called Moggy. All this when she had once been fondled by a child called Angela. 'Poor Devil,' as the Duke of Grafton remarked, when told during the war, that a member of his club had been given a napkin ring.

Aunt Sally's Life by Mrs Gatty is a story within a story and has a child called Missy and I didn't understand it—and Rackety Packety House, which makes up the trio, is a prototype story about goodies who are poor and baddies who are rich, and there is an introduction by Queen Crosspatch and characters called Leopol- dina Aurelia and Clotilda who live in Tidy Castle, quite near where Meg and Peg live rough. Books like this should be accompanied by airline-type paper bags.

Mrs Ewing was worth reviving—but again her book (A Great Emergency and A Very lll- Tempered Family) contains dialogue more appropriate to approving nods than childish joy : "I hope they're decent fellows?" said Rupert kindly. (He had a most pestilent trick of perpetually playing monitor to the wet- blanketing of all good fellowship.)' And the working classes mis-spell; they manage words like Lancingford Canal but come to grief on trubble, innercent and advenchure.

Banning and Blessing by Margaret Roberts, originally published in 1890, has a lovely first line: "'Cicely! Cicer-ly!" called a gruff boy voice, carefully lowered lest anyone but the owner of the name should hear. "Cicer-ly thou little hussy! What be doing of?"' It turns out to be Thomas Hardyesque but for the fact that lust is replaced by social niceties, which is a pity. What I found particularly fetch- ing were the 'original illustrations.' Cicely was firmly in my mind as the lovely dark-haired lady in the picture on page 11—until there she was on page 46, suddenly looking like Danny La Rue in Victorian parlourmaid drag.

The Wallypug of Why by G. E. Farrow was another for which I could have done with the paper bag. It is clearly influenced by Alice but, thanks inter alia to characters called Girlie and Boy and Dumpsey Deazil, I found it desper- ately hard going. My nine year old son agreed and he gave up long before the last line: . . . for perhaps I may have been to sleep after all! This is plum dishonest.

Dent Dutton have reissued Mark Twain (The Prince and the Pauper 21s) and Jules Verne (Around the World in Eighty Days 18s). I read both authors as a child and re-reading them now marvelled at the amount of skipping I must have done to have kept them in fond memory. For me, Around the World in Eighty Days was ruined when they got Niven instead of Robert Morley to play Fogg.

Among children's old books now back on the market, I should like to commend to your atten- tion The Griffin and the Minor Canon, written by Frank Stockton, illustrated by Maurice Sendak, published by Collins.

Here is a sample: The real Griffin settled down in the little square before the church and gazed earnestly at his sculptured likeness. For a long time he looked at it. First he put his head on one side, and then he put it on the other; then he shut his right eye and gazed with his left, after which he shut his left eye and gazed with his right. Then he moved a little to one side and looked at the image, then he moved the other way. After a while he said to the Minor Canon, who had been standing by all this time, "It is, it must be an excellent like- ness! That breadth between the eyes, that ex-

pansive foiehead, those massive jaws! I feel that it must resemble me. If there is any fault to find with it, it is that the heck seems a little stiff. But that is nothing. It is an admirable likeness . . . admirable!" '

If you can't buy it—it costs 16s—go to a bookshop and read it. Ideally, take your children and read it to them. It is one of the best written, most charmingly illustrated books I have ever come across.