British children’s books | Cotsen Children’s Library

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!

A dad made this manuscript for his little son in 1921 and Ian Dooley wrote it up shortly after it was received. It’s a delight, whether you like trains, working class heroes who triumph over their superiors, or appreciate the talent of anonymous author/illustrators. I’m reposting it, with a few changes, hoping that one of Cecil’s descendants will come across it and solve the mystery of its origins!

Front cover. The Romance of Rumples Rig Railwayman Manuscript. [Wargrave, 1921]. (Cotsen)

Acquired nearly ten years ago (item no. 6814899), this manuscript picture book was made as a Christmas gift by “Daddie” for his little son Cecil in 1921. It’s a funny story, involving chance encounters, romance, and upward mobility illustrated with 21 humorous hand-colored illustrations by the author. If you look closely, you can see that the author first wrote in pencil and then retraced it in black ink.

With the scene set, let’s let the story speak for itself:

title-page

There’s one other interesting feature of the manuscript, its bookplate:

Pasted onto the inside front cover, the bookplate answers some questions about the history of this piece and raises a few more. I was able to establish that the acronym “G.W.R.” stands for “Great Western Railway” and that “Wargrave” refers to a village in Berkshire county, southeast England. The now defunct G.W.R. (founded 1833, nationalized at the end of 1947) opened a railway station in the small town of Wargrave in 1900. The platform still stands, but the station building was demolished in 1988.

At some point between 1921 and 1947, Cecil, or someone he knew, seems to have given the manuscript over to the station, although it’s hard to imagine that the station had a library. Who had the label printed up and put in the manuscript?

So why would Wargrave train station have this item?

The story was actually set in the station. If you look closely at the second page (the first illustration after the title-page), you can just make out “GWR” written at the top of one of the papers on Rumples’ office wall. I think it’s safe to assume that the author’s knowledge of the GWR, and the railroad goods office in particular, probably suggests that Rumples might be semi-autobiographical. This might explain why it was donated to the station.

I am guessing that the author probably worked in the goods office at Wargrave station, where he could not help fantasizing about kicking his boss in the bum, getting a boat and a bike, and providing a better home for his children. He put them into his little gift to his son Cecil during the Christmas of 1921. What would he have thought to learn that his present 93 years late traveled over the pond and has become part of the collection of manuscripts in the collection of the Cotsen Children’s Library?

Cotsen Children’s Library

Princeton University

Category Archives: British children’s books

Spring-Heeled Jack, Victorian Superhero and the Remake by Philip Pullman and David Mostyn

Made for a Child: The Romance of Rumples Rig the Railway Man