More “Gigantick Histories” that “altered the concept of children’s books”

Posted on April 16, 2019 by Jeff Barton

Dutch paper covers of four of Cotsen’s “Gigantick Histories,” showing the variations in the original paper used for different titles.

Thomas Boreman’s “Gigantick Histories” were landmark publications in the history of children’s books, as we saw last week. Beginning with the first tiny book — The Gigantick History of the Two Famous Giants, and Other Curiosities in Guildhall — Boreman developed a model for what would eventually comprise a series of ten separate volumes.

After the folk-tale rendition of the story of the giants Gogmagog and Corineus that occupies most of the Gigantick History, Boreman turned to the Guildhall and some of its “curiosities” at the end of the volume 1. His stated intent in verse:

The second book / will plainly show / all in the Guildhall / you want to know.

Boreman’s second printed volume — The Gigantick History, Volume the Second… the History of the Guildhall — discuses aspects of the Guildhall, such as the its chapel and statues outside the building. Boreman adopts a tour-guide style that would characterize most of the following “Gigantick Histories” But I wonder if the details of the Guildhall were as entertaining to young readers as the adventures of the two giants? As if anticipating this criticism, Boreman includes tidbits of history laced with folk-tales in his description, as well as Bible stories and a long description of the Lord Mayor’s Show, a crowd-pleasing public spectacle that would be featured in later children’s books, such as Dean & Munday’s mid-nineteenth century Lord Mayors Show [sic].

The Gigantick History… the History of the Guildhall: frontispiece and title page of Cotsen’s “Second Edition” copy (1741)

Cotsen’s copy is from “the second edition,” as noted on the title page, so the book must have been reasonably popular. The title page also mentions a second location where Boreman’s books are sold — The Boot and Crown on Ludgate Hill — perhaps another suggestion of popularity; an unsuccessful bookseller would be unlikely to have a second location (but is has been suggested that Boreman’s Ludgate Hill location may have predated his Guildhall bookstall¹). Ludgate was the heart of London printing and bookselling in the eighteenth century.

Boreman’s issue of a second edition of the History of the Guildhall might also reflect the very small size of the initial print run. Precise numbers of the print runs of the “Gigantick Histories” are unknown, but subscriber lists in the books themselves and later scholarship suggest printings of between 300 and 500 copies per volume, with the number increasing over the course of the series.²

Next up in Boreman’s “Gigantick Histories” appears to have been the two-volume Curiosities in the Tower of London (1741), which opens with a poem, which reads in part:

Too rigid precepts / often fail / Where short amusing / tales prevail. / The author, doubtless / aims aright, / Who joins instruction / with delight.

This verse may not scan perfectly, but the view underpinning it seems clear: children’s stories should combine instruction and delight if they hope to catch the attention of child readers. And Boreman seems to take his own counsel for the most part in these two books.

Curiosities in the Tower of London (1741): title and frontispiece.

While Volume 1 has a frontispiece of the “White Tower,” and Volume 2 features the Crown Jewels in its frontispiece, much of both volumes’ text and illustrations highlight something likely more appealing to children: animals.

“One of the strangest animals in the world”

Animals? Yes; the Tower housed a menagerie of exotic wild animals from some time in the 1200s until 1835. Among the animals there were lions, tigers, and leopards, all of which Boreman describes and illustrates with woodcuts. One of his more surprising inclusions (to me, at least) was a porcupine, which he described as “one of the strangest animals in the world” with quills “each a foot and a half long.” Boreman’s description and the woodcut of the porcupine he included both seem fanciful, but so too were some of the creatures described and pictured in his earlier titles, Description of Three Hundred Animals (1730) and Description of a Great Variety of Animals and Vegetables (1736), the latter touted in publisher’s advertisements at the end Volume 1 of St Paul’s.

History and Description of … St Paul’s: title page and frontispiece depicting the “new” cathedral

Also issued in 1741 was the two-volume History of St. Paul’s, whose two volumes include nineteen woodcuts, a relative extravaganza for Boreman. In addition to history and tour-guide details about the St. Paul’s — including the weight of its “famous” clock (four tons, four hundred and four pounds) and the number of stairs to the upper gallery (530)! — Boreman sprinkles in Bible stories and concludes with an “Account of the Monument of the Fire of London.”

“Old” St. Paul’s Cathedral. Compare the views of “old” and “new” that Boreman features.

Why such attention to the Monument in a book ostensibly about St. Paul’s Cathedral? The Great Fire of London devastated a significant part of London, including thousands of buildings and landmark churches, one of them the “old” St. Paul’s Cathedral, which Boreman also pictures in his section on the the “History of St. Paul’s. It’s a very medieval-looking structure, in contrast to Christopher Wren’s masterpiece “new” St. Paul’s shown on the frontispiece. Wren also worked on the design of the Monument (along with Robert Hooke), as well as designing many other buildings and churches in the London rebuilt after the Great Fire. Wren is famous to this day for putting his architectural imprint on London; imagine how prominent his name would have been In Boreman’s London! The history of St. Paul’s and the Great Fire would have been something that Boreman’s “little masters and misses” would be expected to learn about too. Boreman is trying to teach as well as amuse.

Seeing the London panorama from the top of the Monument.

As the highest viewpoint in London at the time, the Monument would have been a place that children, sightseers, and visitors would have marveled at and wanted to visit — with those who could afford it paying the fee to climb 300+ steps to the viewing platform for a then-unrivaled panoramic view of London. Boreman provides a cut of the viewers admiring the view, something I think would have appealed to young readers, thereby encouraging them to learn about the history and details of the Monument.

Westminster Abbey was the subject of Boreman’s next “Gigantick Histories” publication, and he once again upped the ante by publishing a three-volume set, which took two years to complete in print (1742-1743). Volume 1 alone included fifteen woodcuts. But, curiously enough, apart the claustrophobic close-up view of the Abbey in the Vol. 1 frontispiece, all the other cuts depict funeral monuments or memorials within the building, and much of the text provides details about the color and nature of marble used. It’s a little hard for me to imagine young readers being enthralled by this turn among the tombs, even if it did introduce them to famed English writers like Geoffrey Chaucer, Abraham Cowley, or Ben Jonson (spelled “Johnson” by Boreman). But take a look at the entry for Jonson and the woodcut portrait, and decide for yourself.

“Oh Rare Ben Johnson”

For some reason, presumably financial, Boreman issued the third Westminster Abbey volume with fellow-bookseller Richard Ware, and indeed Ware’s name appears first on the 1743 title page: “Printed for R. Ware at the Bible and Sun in Amen-Corner and Tho. Boreman, near the Two Giants in Guildhall.” Ware might have provided more of the upfront investment than Boreman did; or perhaps he just struck a hard bargain with Boreman, possibly in need of another investor in order to issue the last volume in this set of three?

Boreman revisited the realm of giants in his 1742 title: The History of Cajanus, the Swedish Giant: from his Birth to the Present Time / by the Author of the Gigantick Histories. (This means that Cajanus predated the third Westminster Abbey volume.) But unlike Gogmagog and Corineus, Boreman’s two original giants, Cajanus is not based on a character from English folklore, but rather on an actual person. Daniel Cajanus lived from 1704-1749, having been born in Finland (not Sweden); his huge size was such a curiosity to some that Cajanus made a living putting himself on show in England at points in the 1730s and 1740s, where Boreman must have seen him, or at least heard about him.

The History of Cajanus: title page and frontispiece depicting Cajanus’s size in context.

In Boreman’s rendition of the story, Cajanus goes to visit the Guildhall, where he marvels at the statues of the two giants and is then “presented” with a copy of The Gigantick History. Boreman thereby manages a clever piece of “product placement,” puffing his first Gigantick History in this one.

Boreman himself appears to have dropped out of sight as a bookseller after the “Gigantick Histories.” There seems to be “no evidence that he published after that date,”³ and I haven’t been able to find out terribly much about him or his life before that date either. Standard resources on eighteenth-century printing and bookselling, such as the British Book Trade Index or Plomer, have relatively little to say about him.

Boreman seems like something of a mysterious figure in publishing history to me. But his legacy to later children’s booksellers and publishers is clear in terms of aspects like: publishing tiny books for tiny hands in a standard format, binding them in Dutch paper, creating subscriber lists with children’s names as a marketing tool, cleverly using publisher’s advertisements and product placement, and generally combining text and illustrations to create books that appealed to children and also provided a model that Newbery and others could then refine.

***
¹ H.R. Plomer, Dictionary of the Booksellers and Printers who were at Work in England, Scotland and Ireland, p. 30.
² Oxford Companion to Children’s Literature; accessed online; Wilbur M. Stone, The Gigantick Histories of Thomas Boreman, p. 11 ff.
³ Oxford Companion to Children’s Literature; accessed online.

Welcome to the “Land of Children” (Kodomo no kuni): Courtesy of a Gift from the Friends of Princeton University Library

Posted on February 1, 2019 by Minjie Chen

By Dr. Tara M. McGowan

Illus. by Honda Shōtarō 本田庄太郎[1], Kodomo no kuni, Nov. 1922 (Cotsen 30591)

Illus. by Nakahara Jun’ichi 中原淳一, Kodomo no Kuni, March, 1937

In recent decades, Japan has achieved worldwide recognition for its own brand of kawaii, or “cute” aesthetic, epitomized by the wide-eyed, youthful characters of manga and animé. What is not so well known is that this aesthetic can be traced back to a profusion of artistic activity that began during a brief period of almost unprecedented freedom of expression known as “Taishō Democracy.” During the Taishō period (1912-1926) progressive ideas flourished, and Japanese artists and writers who had been studying in Europe began returning home in greater numbers, freshly inspired by modernist artistic movements there—late impressionism, expressionism, cubism, fauvism, and Art Deco (Horie and Taniguchi 6). Artists, illustrators, and designers seamlessly integrated Western and Japanese influences into a fusion of styles that continues to feel fresh and innovative today.

Illus. by Hatsuyama Shigeru 初山滋, “Swings,” Kodomo no kuni, May 1930

Illus. by Fukazawa Shōzō 深沢省三, “Bears making mochi,” Kodomo no kuni, Dec. 1929

The Meiji period (1868-1912), when Japan first opened its doors to the west after more than 200 years of relative seclusion, had seen the creation of museums, theme parks, zoos and aquariums, especially in the major metropolitan centers of Tokyo and Osaka, but it was not until the Taishō period (1912-1926) that these spaces began to be viewed as entertaining and educational for children. In Europe, this was roughly the same period in the wake of WWI (1914-1918) that Swedish designer and social reformer, Ellen Key dubbed “The Century of the Child,” where the creation of spaces that would allow children to thrive, both emotionally and physically, and also to develop as artists in their own right became a matter of world-wide concern. In Japan, too, artistic activity increasingly focused on creating an imaginative world, almost exclusively for children. One of the most significant children’s magazines from this period was in fact called “The Land of Children” (Kodomo no kuni). Started in 1922, toward the end of the Taishō period, Kodomo no kuni ran until 1944—a total of 287 volumes—visually chronicling the development of Japanese modernism and rapidly changing definitions of childhood in the lead up to World War II (Nakamura and Iwasaki 5). Thanks to a generous gift from the Friends of the Princeton University Library, the Cotsen Children’s Library recently acquired 72 volumes of this legendary magazine, greatly adding to the completeness of its holdings (a total of 225 volumes).

Author/illus. Takei Takeo 武井武雄, “In the ‘Land of Children’ a children’s tree grows. What a joy it is to see the little birds at play!”

Kodomo no kuni stood out in what is often called the “golden age” of Japanese children’s magazines because of its high artistic standards and the long duration of its publication. Child psychologist and prominent educator Kurahashi Sōzo (倉橋惣三, 1882-1955) was brought on as the chief consultant for the magazine, which reflected his progressive ideas about the importance of comprehensive engagement in the arts to develop children’s self-expression and quality of life (International Library of Children’s Literature). Illustrator Okamoto Kiichi (岡本帰一, 1888-1930), poets Kitahara Hakushū (北原白秋, 1885-1942) and Noguchi Ujō (野口雨情, 1882-1945), and lyricist Nakayama Shinpei (中山晋平, 1887-1952)—all artists at the pinnacles of their respective fields—were brought on as editors and contributors. Iwaya Sazanami (巌谷小波, 1870-1933)—the “father of children’s literature” in Japan—also contributed frequently. Combining pictures, stories, songs, dance, drama, and crafts, the magazine offered artists opportunities to collaborate with one another and even with their young readers. In line with its child-centered philosophy, the serial was published on large (26 x 18.5 cm), thick paper that withstood rough treatment from little hands and allowed for the high-quality, color printing, which still remains vibrant today (International Library of Children’s Literature).

Illus. by Okamoto Kiichi, Kodomo no kuni, December 1929

Just as authors and lyricists were intent upon creating a literature of poetry and songs (dōyo 童謡) and stories (dōwa 童話) for children, illustrators set to work developing a new kind of children’s imagery (dōga 童画). Kodomo no kuni was at the forefront of these efforts because it was the first magazine to commission multiple illustrators, instead of just hiring one in-house artist. In the process of collaborating and exhibiting their work collectively, these illustrators formed Japan’s first Association of Children’s Illustrators (日本童画家協会) in 1927 (Horie and Taniguchi 100). Between 1922 and 1932, Kodomo no kuni boasted over 100 contributing artists, about a quarter of whom were women (International Library of Children’s Literature).

The primary audience for the magazine was the children of a new and growing urban middle-class, who had access to the best that both Western and Japanese cultures had to offer. Artists imagined for these children a fashionable world that consciously combined Japanese and Western styles and motifs (和洋折衷) (Horie and Taniguchi 6). In this illustration, Shimizu Yoshio 清水良雄 depicts a girl, who voices the accompanying lyrics by Kuzuhara Shigeru 葛原滋 (set to music by Motoori Nagayo 本居長世). With her white chapeau, shawl, and mantle—given to her by a favorite uncle—she compares herself to that most often cited symbol of Japan—Mt. Fuji—and says she no longer needs to fear going out in the cold and the elements.

Illus. by Shimizu Yoshio, “White Mantle,” Kodomo no kuni, Feb.1922

Western styles of clothing freed both girls and boys from former constraints on physical movement, and in Kodomo no kuni they can be seen engaging in all manner of outdoor sports together.

Illus. by Takehisa Yumeji, (Cover) Kodomo no kuni, Feb. 1923

The importance of exercise was emphasized in schools through the institution of a yearly sports field day (運動会), which began at the end of the Meiji period (1868-1912) and continues in Japanese public schools today.

Illus. by Okamoto Kiichi, “Sports Field Day,” Kodomo no kuni, Nov. 1929

Artists like Okamoto Kiichi and Takehisa Yumeji (竹久夢二, 1884-1934) did not just depict the children they saw around them, they reimagined and redefined a fashionable and active lifestyle for educated children of the urban middle-class. In Kodomo no kuni, children are often shown in charge of themselves and empowered to take control of their modern, urban surroundings.

Illus. by Okamoto Kiichi, Kodomo no kuni, May 1930

In “Moving Picture Show,” Iwaya Sazanami writes about a boy named Gorō, who just received a movie projector as a gift for his birthday, yet again from “an uncle,” as in the Mantle song above. In silhouette, Gorō is showing movies to his friends on a rainy day when they can’t go outside.

Written by Iwaya Sazanami, “Moving Picture Show,” Kodomo no kuni, June 1922

Along with physical freedom and agency in their modern setting, the magazine encouraged children’s freedom of expression through various arts competitions. Winning entries would often be published at the end of the volumes. In the examples below, we see a sampling of children’s artwork. On the left page below, six-year-old Okumura Fukuko 奥村富久子 has drawn a girl playing with a mari (bouncing ball) and, on the right, is seven-year-old Hagihara Kunio’s 萩原邦夫 drawing of okagura, a sacred shrine dance performance.

Kodomo no kuni, Sept. 1922

Entries by winning contestants between the ages of seven and nine. Kodomo no kuni, Sept. 1927

Although vetted by judges, who were also contributing artists of the magazine, these peeks into actual children’s lives both complement and contrast in intriguing ways with the world depicted in the illustrations by prominent artists of the period.

The interactive aspects of the magazine also included collaborations between the magazine’s artists and child contributors. In the poem titled “My Mother” below, six-year-old Toda Tamae 富田玉江 writes about seeing her dead mother, who came back to her in a dream. The wistful scene in this prize-winning poem is romantically portrayed by female artist Tōyama Yūko 遠山陽子.

Toda Tamae, “My mother,” illus. by Tōyama Yūko, Kodomo no kuni, June 1924

As this poem demonstrates, the editors of Kodomo no kuni were not entirely indifferent to the harsher realities of children’s lives, but the fact remains that the brightly-lit modern and fashionable world often depicted in its pages represented the lives of only a very small proportion of children in Japan at the time. Even for families who could afford the magazine, the “Land of Children” was a realm they could only dream about. During the Taishō and early Shōwa periods (1926-1989), the rift between rich and poor widened, and many Japanese children, especially in rural areas, lived in extreme poverty. In the shadows, children of the very poor were being sold into servitude or slavery and a high proportion of children suffered from endemic diseases, such as tuberculosis (Horie and Taniguchi 82). This shadow side of the history of childhood only darkened as Japan continued its military aggression in the Pacific, greatly depleting its resources at home. Quality paper became scarce by the 1940s, and this decline can be traced in the gradual deterioration of materials and printing standards of the magazine by 1944 when it was discontinued after only 3 volumes. Having a nearly full run of this important children’s magazine allows historians to trace this tumultuous transitional period in Japan between wars, and, as such, it is an invaluable resource for scholars of all aspects of Japanese social, cultural, and visual history. The innovative artists who brought Kodomo no kuni to life continue to inspire and inform the work of artists and illustrators, designers and animators, working in Japan today. Thanks to the generosity of the Friends of Princeton University Library, this rich and delightful resource is now available for the Princeton community and Japan scholars and enthusiasts everywhere.

Note:

[1] All Japanese names are presented in Japanese order with last name first.

References:

Horie, Akiko, and Tomoko Taniguchi. Kodomo paradaisu: 1920-30 nendai ezasshi ni miru modan kizzu raifu [A paradise for children: Modern kids’ lives, as depicted in picture magazines from the 1920s to 30s]. Tokyo: Kawade shobō shinsha, 2005.

International Library of Children’s Literature, National Diet Library. “Kodomo no kuni: Artists and Children’s Books in 1920s Japan.” http://www.kodomo.go.jp/gallery/KODOMO_WEB/index_e.html. Accessed January 29, 2019.

Nakamura, Etsuko, and Mariko Iwasaki. ‘Kodomo no kuni’ sōmokuji [The complete index for the Kodomo no kuni magazine]. Tokyo: Kyūzansha, 1996-1998.