Category Archives: Cotsen Curatorial

Have Fairies Always Had Wings? The Iconography of a Magical Being

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Everyone knows–or ought to–that fairies can fly.  All the thoroughly modern tooth fairies illustrated in this summer’s post about “Rewriting the Tooth Fairy’s Job Description,” no matter what they were wearing, had wings.  These magical beings may not have acquired this essential power until relatively late in their history.

Unfortunately, fairies frequently disguise themselves when they need to test mortals.  In Perrault’s “La fee”–often known in English as “Diamonds and Toads”–the cruel stepmother sends her detested stepdaughter to the well to draw water for the family.  The kind girl stops to give a poor old woman (a fairy transformed beyond recognition) a drink before hurrying back home with the the full pitcher. The illustration does not blow the fairy’s cover then or at the end of the story, so the reader has no idea what she really looks like.  Maybe she has wings, maybe she doesn’t…

The History of the Tales of the Fairies. London: Eben. Tracy, 1716. (Cotsen 25203)

My guess is that she probably didn’t.  Here is one of the earliest pictures I have ever seen of fairies in the wood cut frontispiece to a selection of original fairy tales by Mme. d’Aulnoy published by Ebenezer Tracy in 1716, just a few years after they were first translated into English.  (Cotsen 25203).   A group of tiny fairies are dancing in a ring before their king and queen, who are, rather incongruously, the size of human beings (the bird and insect in the upper left and right also were not drawn to the expected scale). The dancers are wearing brimmed hats with steeple crowns, the kind that Mother Goose and witches wear, but they have no wings.

(Cotsen 25203)

The book was owned by a George Jones who wrote his name in the back of the book.  George tried to copy a portion of the frontispiece on its blank side.  He, or whoever the artist was, had some trouble drawing the fairies, but they don’t any wings.

(Cotsen 25203)

William Blake, who claimed to have seen a fairy funeral, ought to be a reliable source. The Tate holds a charming  drawing ca. 1786 of the fairies dancing in a ring before their  king Oberon and his queen Titania, in which everyone is wingless.

A little over ten years later, the French illustrator of  Perrault’s “Peau d’ane” in an edition of 1798.  The girl with the donkey’s skin thrown over the blue dress must be the heroine, so the fairy has to be the lady in the rose gown with the billowing yellow scarf descending in a cloud.  No wings necessary seems a reasonable explanation.

But in forty years, there has been a major change in the representation of the appearance and attributes of fairies.  The fairy Cri-Cri shown in the frontispiece of  Fairy Tales, Consisting of Seven Delightful Stories (London: T. Hughes, 1829;  Cotsen 33142) has gauzy pink wings and an accessory that is clearly some kind of wand.

Fairy Tales. London: T. Hughes, [not before 1829]. (Cotsen 33142)

It is impossible to mistake the fairy in the Walter Crane illustration below.  Her blue chiton harmonizes perfectly with her gorgeous (and very prominent) wings.

Lucy Crane, The Baby’s Bouquet: A Fresh Bunch of Old Rhymes and Tunes. Illustrated by Walter Crane. London: George Routledge & Sons, 1878. (Cotsen 21153)

Why did the appearance of fairies change so dramatically?  I strongly suspect it was the  influence of the popular theater in London, but it will take an enterprising enterprising scholar to establish a more precise history of fairy wings…

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

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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

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:

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title-page

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35-3637-38There’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?