Category Archives: 19th century

Party Line! Gianni Rodari’s Telephone Tales

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Allow me to introduce you to the greatest Italian children’s book author of the twentieth century—Gianni Rodari, a journalist, life-long Communist, educator, and winner of the 1970 Hans Christian Andersen award.  His poems, short stories, and full-length fantasies influenced by linguistics, surrealism, and the desire for social justice, have been widely translated, but they are sadly little known in the English-speaking world.  So why wait?  Sample two of his  highly inventive “math lessons” from Anthony Shugaar’s glorious translation of Telephone Tales (1980) illustrated by Valerio Vidali and published in 2020 in honor of the centennial of the author’s birth by the extraordinary independent children’s book publisher, Enchanted Lion.

Inventing Numbers

“Shall we invent some numbers?”

“Yes, let’s.  I’ll go first.  Almost-one, almost-tw0, almost-three, almost-four, almost-five, almost-six.”

“That’s not enough.  Listen to this one: a mega million times a billion, a tricyclon of squintillions, a googleplexity of centillions, and an octillion.”

Telephone Tales. New York: Enchanted Lion Books, 2020. (Cotsen RECAP-82788)

“All right then.  I’ll invent a multiplication table: three times one, a barrel of fun; three times two, Kalamazoo; three times three, coffee and tea; three times four, dinosaur, three times five, backward dive; three times six, stacks of bricks, three times seven, manna from heaven; three times eight, Alexander the Great; three times nine, Frankenstein; three times ten, and back again.”

“How much does this pasta cost?”

“Two slaps on the wrist.”

“How far is it from here to Milan?”

“A thousand new miles, one used miles, and seven lemon gumdrops.”

“How much does a teardrop weigh?”

“Depends.  A willful child’s teardrop weights less than the wind, but that of a starving child weighs more than the world”

“How long is this story?”

“Too long.”

“Okay, then, let’s hurry up and invent more numbers.  Here we go, in New York style: foist, secant, and toid, toitytoid and a hunnit and toid, a doity boid plus a noid is the woid.”

 

Upgraded plus Two

“Help! Help!” a poor Ten cried as he took to his heels.

“What’s the matter?  What’s happening to you?”

“Don’t you see?  I’m being chased by a Subtraction.  If it catches me, it’ll be a disaster.”

“Oh, come one!  Don’t you think ‘disaster’ is a little much?”

(Cotsen RECAP-82788)

There, the worst has happened: The monstrous Subtraction has grabbed the Ten, lunging at him, slashing savagely with its razor-sharp sword.  The poor Ten loses one digit, then another.  To its immense good fortune, a foreign car a block long goes by.  The Subtraction turns and stares for a moment to see whether he shouldn’t shorten it a little, and good old Ten takes advantage of the distraction to get away and hides in a doorway.  But now he’s no longer a Ten; he’s just an ordinary Eight, add what’s more he has a nosebleed.

“Poor little thing, what did they do to you?  You got into a fight with your school mates, didn’t you?”

(Cotsen RECAP-82788)

“Heavens above, everyone run for your lives!”  The high-pitched voice is sweet and compassionate, but its owner is Division itself.  The unfortunate Eight whispers, “Good evening,” in a faint tone, and tries to turn and go, but Division is quicker than Eight, and with a single clip of her scissors, she cuts him into two: Four and Four.  She puts one of the Fours inside her pocket, and the  one takes off running, racing back onto the street, where it leaps onto a passing trolley.

“A moment ago, I was a Ten,” he sobs, “and now just look at me!  A Four!”

The pupils on the trolley all hasten to get some distance between themselves and the Four.  None of them want anything to do with him.  The trolley driver mutters, “ Certain people really ought to have enough common sense to go on foot.”

“But it’s not my fault!” the ex-Ten shouts through his tears.

“Sure, blame it on the cat.  That’s what they all say.”

The Four get off at the next stop, red as a red cherry candy.

Uh oh!  He’s pulled another one of his pranks—he’s stepped on someone’s toe.

“I’m sorry!  I’m so, so sorry, Signora!”

But the lady isn’t angry.  In fact she smiles up at him.  Well, well, well, looky who it is!  None other than Multiplication!

She has a heart of gold and can’t stand the sight of unhappy people.  So right then and there, she multiplies the Four by Three.  Now, he’s a magnificent Twelve, ready to count a whole dozen eggs.

“Hurray!” cries Twelve.  I’ve been increased!  Increased by two.!

 

The King of Barbary in Dick Whittington and His Cat: From Caliph to Chinese Emperor

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The History of the Children in the Wood… London: Printed by Sabine and Son, [between 1808 and 1825]. (Cotsen 154124)

There’s no magic in the rags-to-riches story of  Dick Whittington, thrice Lord Mayor of London, shown at the left at the height of his fame from a chapbook ca. 1808 published by T. Sabine and son (Cotsen 154124).  The orphan owes his fortune to a cat whose special power is the ability to slaughter enormous numbers of mice and rats in short order.  The scene, which realigns the boy’s stars, is set in a faraway land with there are no felines, but many of us probably don’t remember it is somewhere in the East. The history of its illustration is interesting for a twist that seems to have gone unnoticed.

Here’s a summary of the events leading up to the scene. Dick was a scullion employed by Mr. Fitzwarren, a wealthy merchant.  His life was made miserable by the tyrannical cook and the vermin overunning his attic room. With a penny received for an errand, he purchased a cat, who eradicated them  When Fitzwarren had a ship ready to depart to foreign lands, he always invited every member of the household to invest.  As capital, Dick put in  the cat, being his only piece of property (illustrated to the left from The famous and remarkable history of Sir Richard Whittingon (1656). The master’s ship was driven ashore on a part of the Barbary Coast where no Englishmen had landed.  The resident Moors received the British graciously and the King was so pleased by the goods he was shown that the captain and the factor were invited back to the palace.  A sumptuous feast was laid out, but no one could enjoy a bite because a torrent of rats and mice befouled and devoured everything.  The king vowed it would be worth half his treasury to control the beasts, so the factor had the brilliant idea of bringing Dick’s cat to the palace.   Puss was expecting kittens very soon, but in spite of her condition, she was so efficient that a  king’s ransom was given for her and her litter in order to decimate the country’s population of rats and mice.

How has this scene showing an exchange between two cultures, religions and races been depicted over time?  Given the outline of the story, it lends itself to dramatic treatment rather than cultural commentary and that is how it was presented in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century chapbooks.  The first one comes from The famous and remarkable History of Sir Richard Whittington (1656), the second from The Children in the Wood, to which is added The History of R. Whittington (London: Sabine and Son, ca. 1810) The one on top ignores the text and does not darken the King of Barbary’s skin–it’s his headware and slippers with the pointed toes that mark him as an exotic foreigner.  In the second cut, turbans capped with crowns and skin color distinguish the King and Queen from the European visitor, but all the figures have been cut in such a rudimentary fashion that it would be difficult to see in them reflections of actual attitudes towards the other.

Whittington and his Cat. [Otley?: William Walker?, between 1813 and 1820?]. (Cotsen 150398)

Although smaller than the first two examples, these blocks from an early nineteenth provincial chapbook, Whittington and his Cat (Otley, York: W. Walker, ca. 1820: Cotsen 150398)  are by two hands.  But even the less accomplished of the two represents the European as more noble and civilized than his Black Moorish hosts, whose features look as if they have been gouged into the block.  Neither the king nor queen wear the flowing robes associated with Moors and it’s hard to say if they are supposed to wearing the native dress of a particular country or if they came out of the cutter’s imagination.

Whittington and his Cat. (Cotsen 150398)

The History of Whittington and his Cat. London: Orlando Hodgson, 1833. (Cotsen 95990)

The hand-colored engraved frontispiece of The History of Whittington and his Cat (London: Orlando Hodgson, 1833: Cotsen 95990) above  transformed the King of Barbary into the Emperor of Morocco, who seems to be wearing vaguely Chinese finery and forsaken a turban.   What has precipitated this change?   Perhaps that this illustration was influenced by a popular stage production. While the publisher Hodgson, is best known for his satirical political prints, he also issued toy theaters, many of whose scripts were based on the best known contemporary plays, and versions of fairy tales not taken from the originals, but from the versions that held the stage for some time.

[Playbill of Theatre Royal, Covent-Garden, 1815…]. London [England]: E. Macleish, 1815. (TC113 Box 14)

December 26th 1815, the pantomime Harlequin Whittington premiered at  Covent Garden Theater, praised by the European Magazine for the beautiful scenery and well-staged stunts, which included a balloon ascent and a final production number punctuated by fireworks.    In the cast was the beloved clown Joey Grimaldi who delivered the showstopping number, “All the World’s in Paris.”    There was no  Emperor of Morocco listed as a character in the early playbills I could access, but it may have been better for business to emphasize the spectacular effects and Grimaldi’s hit song.

But the subsequent history of Whittington on the stage suggests that the scene where the foreign king is astounded by a cat would continue to change. The folk tale quickly became established in the nineteenth century as among the most popular subjects for pantomime productions. While the Emperor of Morocco can be found in the programs’ dramatic personae, it is clear that the character no longer owed much to the traditional chapbook. Late in the Victorian period, the role was assigned to the First Boy,  a charming young actress whose legs could be shown to advantage by the costume designer (this drawing is reproduced from the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum).  And a highly unscientific search for pictures of the Emperor in contemporary productions did not (unsurprisingly) turn up Black actors or white men in black face playing the part.