Acquisitions | Cotsen Children’s Library

Two weeks ago the Princeton Board Games Club visited Special Collections to look at a selection of Cotsen’s board games. Here they are battling it out over Election: The Game of the Day, a 1950s board game very loosely based on Monopoly where players try to win seats in the House of Commons. The battle for voters in Coventry and Bedford was spirited.

But when they walked into the large classroom, they made a beeline to the game shown in the foreground of the photograph and asked what it was? The playing surface appears to be a drawing covering four sheets of paper which have been mounted on board, varnished, and hinged with fabric. The only evidence for the materials that were used if the label shown to the left pasted on the back. The creator didn’t sign the front anywhere obvious, although it’s possible a name could be concealed somewhere among all the figures. Sometimes the rules for published board games are printed down the vertical sides, but this feature was not copied. Perhaps they were written out and made into a little booklet. The tokens and dice probably went missing decades ago.

Was this pastime based on Snakes and Ladders or is it a variation of the Game of the Goose, the most popular race game of all? There’s no way to know unless players line up at the castle in the upper left hand corner and advance down the track.

[Antique Manuscript Board Game]. [London?, 1920s?]. (Cotsen)

Like any version of the Game of the Goose, players lucky enough to land on certain squares get a leg up on their competitors. The Bull of Norway from the fairy tale waits at number 88 to carry the player to number 111.

Among the obstacles to advancement is a fiery salamander, who will detain a play until a six is thrown. There two dragons to avoid… Land on number 25 (notice that there’s one in bold in a circle and another above) and the knight kills the lion waiting to maul travellers and the the player can jump over the scaly brute to number 35. The second dragon can be slain if Excalibur is pulled from the stone at number 93. Otherwise it will eat the unfortunate player who lands on number 94, eliminating him or her from play. The satyr facing it is perhaps piping a tune to improve its digestion. The elves to the right look disinclined to intervene.

Tramp through the Forest of Sherwood and meet Dick Turpin, the highwayman, who will relieve the player of unnecessary baggage. Avoid him and there’s a chance of nabbing the Seven League Boots that will skip ahead to number 73.

Hurry down to the sea and sail a tall ship around Neptune and bypass Long John Silver on Treasure Island.

Turn north to head for home, a stately country home. Perhaps it is a picture of a real place, the actual site where this quirky shared world cum board game was made. So far there aren’t enough clues to figure out who drew the game board, although it seems a good guess that the person lived in England before the first World War and was very familiar with the classics of Victorian literature. When it’s digitized and up in the Cotsen module of DPUL, the board game club can figure out how it’s played!

In 1837, there were reports in south London of an alarming figure assailing unsuspecting Londoners walking out late at night. This was the beginning of the urban legend of Spring-Heeled Jack, the masked boogeyman who made sudden appearances (often by leaping great distances) and fills criminals with terror, often credited by experts in popular fiction like the great collector Joseph Rainone, as a forerunner of Batman. By 1900 Jack was quite the dandy…

Cotsen has just acquired a complete run of 1867 penny-dreadful, Spring-Heeled Jack, The Terror of London by the Author of TURN-PIKE DICK, the Star of the Road. The first attempt to create a narrative about this cryptid ran to 48 numbers in 576 pages set in two columns on brittle paper. Each 12-page number was illustrated with a captioned picture 175 x 130 mm. The covers may have been removed when the set was bound into one volume. If the printer and publisher left any traces, it would have been on the wrappers, if there were any. Unless they were too embarrassed by the high consumption of brandy, Sir Roland Ashton, the aristocratic villain’s “hard and cruel heart,” the virtuous young lady with blond tresses and pearly teeth warding off loathsome advances, crime fighters named Catchpole and Grabham, etc. in issue after issue being ground out for the greedy consumption of impressionable young men.

One hundred and twenty-odd years later Philip Pullman wrote a tongue-in-cheek homage illustrated by David Mostyn to high Victorian scary silliness illustrated for the chapter book crowd. Author and illustrator assume that their readers will be able to follow a penny dreadful spoof, having picked up the conventions which still shape all kinds of popular fiction.

But how does this modern Spring-Heel Jack resemble the 1867 original?

He appears in odd places at odd times.His legs have extraordinary strength.

He is a protector of women, although it’s easy to see why he would frighten them.He always gets his man, some times by unorthodox means like a storytelling contest. The grossest one wins.But they don’t really look the same…. Some contemporary accounts say he wore what sounds like a white body suit, but penny-dreadful Jack appears to be wearing no clothes on most of his escapades. Occasionally he has a cape with a shaped hem. He wears a mask with horns, but no hat could contain all those coarse, long locks. His eyes glow and he breathes fire. The critical difference is the footware. Mostyn’s masked crusader is shod in knee-high boots à la Superman; penny-dreadful Jack is barefoot throughout.It pays to go back to the source!