German-language children’s books | Cotsen Children’s Library

Boys being boys… Another episode in the ongoing rivalry between Horrid Henry and Peter Perfect

During the Big Move–shifting miles of rare materials into RBSC’s cavernous new vault whose completion was celebrated in the previous post, “Moving Day in Feather Town“–I discovered three really awful nineteenth-century books about bad boys. In contemporary children’s books, characters whose halos have slipped down around their shoulders are not exactly underrepresented… Think of Francesca Simon’s Horrid Henry, whose antics have given rise to a multi-media empire. Bad boys are by no means non-existent in older children’s books, but the way boyish misbehavior was punished has changed dramatically as attitudes towards authority, curiosity, mischief, and mistakes have become more lenient.

Two well-known stories about bad boys display zero tolerance for boys like Horrid Henry who disrespected authority. In Kings 2:22-3 of the Old Testament, the prophet Elisha passes a pack of young louts on the road to Bethel. These ancestors of the Purple Gang yell at Elisha, “Go up, you old baldy” and Elisha retaliates by cursing them. Two female bears come out of the woods and maul forty-two of the no-goods.

Oh dear…

Undoubtedly this gruesome story was the inspiration for many cautionary tales about bad boys. Daniel Fenning’s best-selling school book, The Universal Spelling Book (1756) was the source of this famous one about the brothers Tommy and Harry, which Charles Dickens alluded to in David Copperfield. Harry the elder brother was a rotter and Tommy the younger was a Peter Perfect. Guess which brother was eaten by lions?

Woodcut, page 43, Cotsen 118 (19th edition, 1773)

Woodcut of the lion lunching on Harry on page 43 of the 19th edition of Fenning’s Universal Speller (1773). The Universal Spelling-book. [Providence]: re-printed and sold by John Carter, [1773] (Cotsen 118)

By the nineteenth century bad boys are all over picture books, but they usually make mischief in a series of illustrations rather than starring in a continuous narrative. All three of the books I found during the Big Move–one French, one British, and one German–fall into the second category. In Les Proverbes de Pierre (1890), illustrator Jean Geoffrey dresses up his little devils in Pierrot costumes and sets them loose in the classroom and in the street. Notice that it takes a young peep show operator (the one with what looks like a little tower strapped on his back) and the boy-gendarme to break up the squabble below. The second picture shows what can happen when the teacher steps out of the classroom. Is the boy in the upper left sending up his teacher? Where are the wild beasts?

Page 21, Les Proverbes de Pierrot. Paris: Librairie Ch. Delagrave (Cotsen 10743)

The one boy waves a hat that reads “Ass” while his accomplices dance on a sign saying “Lazy.” (Cotsen 10743), 1

In the British picture book Young Troublesome (ca. 1850), John Leech gleefully shows just how much mischief a public school boy could make at home during the Christmas holidays. In this plate the adults stand by helplessly as the young pickle shows his little brothers and sisters how easy and delightful it is to slide down a bannister.

Plate 2, “Young Troublesome.” London: Bradbury & Evans, [1850] (Cotsen 3141)

There are also illustrations showing boys playing practical jokes that are anything but fun and games. In Ludwig Kies’ Der Kinder Art und Unart (ca. 1855′), the boys in the boat dump an elaborately dressed tailor overboard. The tailor’s terrified expression suggests he thinks that once his heavy clothes become waterlogged, he will drown. The boys, who may be working class, show no remorse for what they have done and it looks as if no one will step forward and punish them. .

Plate [53], Der Kinder Art und Unart. Stuttgart: Schreiber und Schill, [185-?] (Cotsen 24963)

Likewise Leech’s Young Troublesome seems to think nothing of interfering with the servants while they are working, or apologizing when his prank ruins their clothing. The hapless servant may have no other recourse than complaining to his comrades below the stairs.

Plate 10, (Cotsen 3141)

Of all activities forbidden to children, playing with fire may have been one of the most satisfying because it was so risky. From the late eighteenth century onward, it is not especially difficult to find illustrations of children whose clothes have caught fire, a very real possibility in homes where there were multiple fireplaces with open grates. William Darton senior liked such subjects, but no engraving in his firm’s juvenile books can compare with this one from Der Kinder Art und Unart of a boy running out of the hen house, which he accidentally set aflame. Unlike many of the plates in this book, no adult appears to reprimand the little arsonist (or mourn his passing as the kitties did Hoffmann’s Paulinchen).

Plate [30], (Cotsen 24963)

In sharp contrast, Young Troublesome and his assistant look as if they have deployed every bit of firepower behind the scenes to bring the juvenile theater production of The Miller and His Men to a triumphant conclusion. The size of the explosion seems to have given his papa pause. Or perhaps his ears were ringing from all the racket from the special effects.

Plate 7, (Cotsen 3141)

Last but not least, is this illustration of a boy on his way to school pausing to get a light from a street urchin, while a gaping classmate watches them indulging in a forbidden vice. A casual depiction of underage smoking like this one in a picture book would be enough to get Les proverbes de Pierre a PG-13 rating these days and possibly launch a heated discussion on childlit-listserv…

More bad habits… (Cotsen 10743), 33.

Respectively: Cotsen 2333, 1616, 14315 (Oldenburg : Gerhard Stalling, [ca. 1921])

Nürnberger Puppenstubenspielbuch is not only a mouthful of German, it’s also the title of a wonderful slot book by Else Wenz-Viëtor. Literally translated as: Nuremberg dollhouse game book, the three books pictured above are consecutive editions (auflage in German) three, four, and five; all published in the early 1920’s.

Slot books (sometimes, unfortunately, referred to as “slotty books” in England) are part doll house and part book. While they are clearly a codex, pages or spreads feature illustrated backgrounds (often of a domestic nature) with little or no text. Each book is accompanied by any number of cut-out figures which can be fit into slots on the pages. These figures are often people and various objects which can be fit into the book in order to, by the powers of the user’s imagination, form scenes or narratives about the figures and their background environment. Essentially then, slot books serve as a kind of two dimensional (and much more transportable) doll house.

Nürnberger Puppenstubenspielbuch features six household scenes, each occupying their own double page spread. The book runs through a middle class German household, from the front hallway, to a parlor, a bedroom, a nursery, the kitchen, and the backyard garden.

The parlor, spread 2

The nursery, spread 4

In addition to the obvious slots necessarily present in any slot book, Nürnberger also includes various flaps. Here, figures can be places behind doors, in ovens, in cabinets, etc. Since these flaps need to be manipulated in order for the figures behind them to be revealed, this kind of interaction allows for a sense of motion and time to be introduced into a particular scene.

a door flap and an oven door flap in the parlor, spread 3

The door flap and the oven door flap in the parlor, spread 2

We recently received a reference question regarding the figure cut-outs that belong to the different editions (sparking this blog post in the first place). As it turns out, there are some slight cosmetic differences between the three editions that we have here at Cotsen.

As you can tell from the picture at top, the fourth edition has a blue spine while editions three and five have red spines. Since this blue spine is so much worse for wear than the other contemporary editions, it might indicate that the publisher attempted to save money by cutting a corner in production. But with our sample size so small, we can’t be sure about the spine color or material of different editions or printings.

The editions have different figures as well. The varying number of figures between our different copies, however, has more to do with time than it does with production choices. Many cut-outs have simply been lost or damaged with use.

All the figures with edition 3. Nürnberger Puppenstubenspielbuch. Oldenburg: Gerhard Stalling, [ca. 1921] (Cotsen 2333)

All the figures with edition 4, Cotsen 1616

All the figures with edition 4. Nürnberger Puppenstubenspielbuch. Oldenburg: Gerhard Stalling, [ca. 1921] (Cotsen 1616)

All the figures with edition 5, Cotsen 14315

All the figures with edition 5. Nürnberger Puppenstubenspielbuch. Oldenberg: Gerhard Stalling, [ca. 1921] (Cotsen 14315)

As you can tell by comparing the pictures, some of the surviving figures from the third edition do look different from the later two editions. The little girl, the housekeeper, and the nanny have a different appearance.

While the fourth and fifth editions overlap in all but a few extra outfits and objects (though light and time have affected the figures differently), you’ll probably notice that the fifth edition includes some extra guests in the bottom left of the picture. These figures are from a different slot book and must have been introduced by a former owner. Besides the obvious coloring differences, they are made of much thinner paper.

Figures from other sources, replacements, and custom cut-outs were often introduced by savvy children more interested in play than collection. As a result, those who do collect slot books often find an array of outside material.

Now, with the technical exposition out of the way, what blog post about slot books would be complete without a little fun scene making?

Young Hans loses control of the parlor while babysitting his sister Helga.

Here little Odetta fails at quietly playing tea with her dolly and wakes the babes in the nursery.

With such a variety of backgrounds and figures slot books could potentially provide hours of imagination and fun. I, at least, had some fun making my own scenes and I hope you enjoyed learning about Nürnberger Puppenstubenspielbuch.

Cotsen Children’s Library

Princeton University

Category Archives: German-language children’s books

Bad Boys: A Very Short History

Else Wenz-Vietor’s Slot Book: Nürnberger Puppenstubenspielbuch