Marks in Books #1: “Our Girls Stories”

Posted on July 28, 2011 by Jeff Barton

Marks that readers make in their books has been an area of interest to book historians for some time, particularly since Roger Stoddard’s 1985 Marks in Books. They provide evidence of how people actually used their books and what they thought about them. Some readers note the dates each time they read, which tells us how frequently they read and how much reading was done in a sitting. Some note questions, indicating how they responded to their reading. And some make comments, indicating agreement or disagreement with the text being read. Some readers make marks not consisting of words at all: shorthand symbols, doodles, faces and figures, or copies of the illustrations printed in the book. These can be especially hard for book historians to interpret, especially in the case of children’s markings, because they are not in words.

Cover of Our Girls: Stories for the Young (London: Routledge, [not before 1888]). (Cotsen 153465)

Yet marks in children’s books–annotations, pictures, squiggles, or coloring of printed illustrations–are increasingly seen as an important avenue for book-historians to gauge how little readers–sometimes “pre-literate”–actually used their books and how they may have responded to them. M. O. Grenby’s recent book, The Child Reader, uses inscriptions and marginalia, along with other sources, such as diaries, to reconstruct child-readers’ experiences.

A recently-cataloged Cotsen Library book, Routledge’s Our Girls: Stories for the Young, has some readers’ marks that provide considerable evidence of use by those who previously handled the book.

Here’s the basic record in Princeton’s catalog:

Title:	Our Girls: Stories for the Young.
Published/Created:	New York; London; Glasgow; Manchester: George Routledge and Sons, Limited, 9 Lafayette Place [not before 1888] (N[ew] Y[ork]: Beatty & Co., Lith., 193 & 194 West St.)
Physical description:	[48] p.: ill. (wood engrs.); 24 cm.

Frontispiece ill. (signed by Stoddard) hand-colored by a child-reader. (Cotsen 153465)

Like many children’s books, especially those published by Routledge or Warne, this book isn’t dated; the 1888 date is based on the dates that Routledge was active under the imprint “George Routledge and Sons, Ltd.” and on the date that the firm opened up their New York offices (1889). A collection of stories and poems for children, Our Girls is extensively illustrated with wood-engravings, many occupying a full page, signed by well-known engravers and illustrators, such as the Dalziel Brothers, Edmund Evans, Alfred Thomas, E.J. Walker, Lizzie Lawson, Robert Barnes, Joseph Blamire, and others.

For a mass-produced Routledge title from this period, this book is surprisingly rare today, no other copy being found in OCLC, the world-wide library catalog (although other similar titles were found, suggesting a possible series of related books).

But our interest here is in the marks made in this book by those who handled it after it came from the publisher. There are three different sorts.

A gift inscription on the first leaf of the book, the front free endpaper, apparently in an attractive adult hand: “Blanche, from Fansie.” Above this, in the upper right corner are some pencil markings, presumably by a book dealer: “B51539, 15 [stuck out], 10″
Another pencil inscription on the last leaf of the book, facing the last illustration, apparently from a child reader that reads: “Faustina Freeman”
Apart from written annotations, a number (but by no means all) of the illustrations in the book have been colored, presumably by a child-reader.

Inscriptions on first and last pages of the book and title page hand-coloring by a child reader. (Cotsen 153465)

What can the annotations and/or markings in this particular book tell us about the book itself, its readers, or how child-readers interacted with the book? For starters, there are several marks–of different types–apparently made by different people at different times. Taken together, they constitute quite a bit of evidence of possession and actual use by owners or readers. This, in turn, tells us that this book did indeed serve “the purpose for which it was created”: to be actively handled, valued, and used, presumably by child–the second name and the colored illustrations evidence this.

Multiple inscriptions suggest that this book mattered to people–both to a consumer who bought it, or otherwise obtained it, and then gave it as a gift, presumably to a child, its intended audience, and to another child reader, who inscribed it. One person (Fansie) thought it worthwhile to note giving it as a gift, and a second, a child (Faustina), then, in effect, laid “claim” to it as her own by signing it herself. The gift inscription is, in part, a product of its era and the culture of literacy and book-use at that time. People signed their books, both as owners and donors, something they seem to do less often today. (When was the last time that you inscribed a book?).

Gift inscriptions from adults to children are relatively common in Cotsen’s nineteenth-century and early-twentieth-century books, even though they are found in a relatively small percentage of the Library’s total holdings, reminding us, as Grenby points out, that inscribed book are still the exception, not the rule. Nor do we know for certain if inscribed books were retainedat a higher rate than those without marks, although this seems plausible.Inscribed books were, after all, used and presumably given a measure of attention and respect from their owners, so it’s reasonable to infer that they were kept, and even passed along to other people, as seems to be the case with Our Girls. But we just don’t know how truly “representative” a sample they provide of all books published.

Gift Inscription: Blanche, from Fansie. (Cotsen 153465)

Apart from evidencing one received tradition of nineteenth-century book-culture, this inscription suggests that “Fansie” thought that making the gift of this little book was important enough to record this fact for the recipient–and for posterity; after all, she wrote in pen. This wouldn’t have been a terribly expensive gift book when new, but it’s not a cheap, semi-disposable pamphlet either. It was meant to last a while, possibly through several readers. From the fact of the inscription, we might also infer that books mattered to Fansie and that “Blanche” was a child who mattered to her personally, as well. Why bother inscribing a book casually passed off to a semi-stranger?

Fansie’s hand is nicely-formed, with an attractively decorative capital “B”, possibly suggesting a well-educated inscriber, or at least one well-schooled in script penmanship. She thus seems to be a member of the educated English middle-class that valued books and reading for children, as an increasing number of people seemed to do in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Adults were willing to spend money on books for children that weren’t strictly pedagogical or overtly religious, and publishers like Routledge were eager to supply this expanding market.

Bookseller’s notation: inventory number and prices. (Cotsen 153465)

The other annotations on the page appear to be inventory code and price codes, written by a used bookseller or antiquarian dealer. These are typically made in pencil, to avoid “defacing” the book, and are sometimes also found on a page at the end. The meaning of the inventory number is lost to us, but the price information does tell us how much the bookseller charged for it–and also suggests that it wasn’t a fast-seller, because the price appears to have been knocked down by 50%! Perhaps this was due to the condition of the embrittled paper or a lack of appeal by the anonymous stories, or both? Since we don’t know the exact date when these price notations date were made, it’s hard to be sure how revealing they are, but, clearly, it was not a tremendously expensive item for a collector, even thirty years ago (even if the price refers to British pounds, not American dollars). Oddly enough, the “lack of appeal” is quite possibly due to the very markings under discussion, which used to be regarded as flaws or “imperfections” by dealers and collectors–and sometimes still are–since the annotations are not by important people (insofar as we know, anyway), they’re not “literary” or terribly revealing in personal terms, and some collectors and scholars regard coloring as tantamount to defacing illustrations by rendering them no longer “as issued” when a book was published.

Inscription facing last illustration: Faustina Freeman. (Cotsen 153465)

The other inscription in this book was done by a child: Faustina Freeman. It’s location is somewhat unusual: on a blank page at the end of the book, facing the last illustration. Why here? Usually, such a name inscription arrears on a page at the beginning of the book. But notations certainly can appear throughout a book, particularly in one with a lot of other inscriptions. We don’t even know for certain who actually wrote it, but it seems reasonable to assume it was Miss Faustina herself, signing her name. Perhaps she was just using a conveniently blank page to practice writing or signing her name. (This happens fairly frequently in children’s books from both the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In cases like that, though, there are usually other writings in a book.) It’s also possible that the little girl was imitating adult practice of signing a book to indicate her ownership but just hadn’t yet learned that book-ownership convention put such signings at the beginning of the book. There’s no way to know for sure, but whatever the case, signing your name is a claim of sorts, telling anyone else seeing the book that “It’s mine” or at least “I was here.”

First full-page ill. that is hand-colored (p. [7]), to show two blond girls. (Cotsen 153465)

The hand-coloring of eight wood-engraved illustrations is too roughly done, and also too sporadic, to have been done by a publisher. But they all do seem to have been done by the same child-reader. This coloring of printed illustrations in the book is a clear sign of a child’s use of it and an indication of a her response to it, albeit not in the form of writing or inscriptions, which are generally easier for adults studying book-history to interpret. Do these colorings indicate the child’s engagement with the book and its contents or a lack of engagement and distraction? Are they evidence of interest, perhaps by a child not yet able to write, or some sort of graffiti, showing disdain? Of course, there’s no way to know for certain. But I would argue that this hand-coloring shows engagement with the book–after all, it is quite neat and it’s also nicely artistic. While child-like, the colorings are well within the outlines–something a very young child usually can’t manage–and many of them show an awareness of appropriate colors. Hair is usually colored yellow and wood is brown, for instance.

Two hand-colorings, both foregrounding the girls in the illustrations with color. (Cotsen 153465)

Interestingly, virtually every illustration that is colored depicts a young girl, and hair coloring is always yellow, suggesting the handiwork of a young girl, perhaps four to seven years of age, and one with blond hair. (I know of at least one little blond book-lover who almost always colored the children she drew with yellow hair, intending that they should look just like her!) In two illustration (one depicting a girl and a boy together and one showing a little girl and her nanny) only the girl is colored, foregrounding her and leaving the other figures as background figures, perhaps indicating the way they were perceived by the little artist.

The coloring ends after the unnumbered page [19], with eight illustrations totally or partly colored-in. Did the young artists lose interest in either coloring, or the book itself? Or did she put the book aside, intending to come back another day? And was she Blanche, to whom the book was inscribed? Or was it Faustina who signed the book? We’ll probably never know, but whatever the case–and whoever the artist–she left clear evidence of unmistakable use for us to see–and to learn from. We have no idea if she was engaged with the stories in the book or even if she actually read them–or even if she could read. But she obviously was engaged by the illustrations, and her use of the book is still clear and unmistakable–and it has been fortunately preserved for posterity.

The three other illustrations in Our Girls that have been hand-colored by a child, including two more blond girls. Note how the first (not a full-page ill.) is the only one colored that does not feature a little girl. (Cotsen 153465)

Postscript (Dec. 14, 2011)

The great grandniece of Faustina Freeman, who read this Cotsen blog posting, has kindly supplied some more information about Ms. Freeman.

Faustina Freeman was born in Provincetown, Massachusetts in 1886, the daughter of Prince Freeman and Dorinda Cook Young. She grew up in Provincetown, on Cook Street and was educated at Boston College, class of 1909, the University of California, Berkeley (1912), and Simmons College, Boston, in Library Science (1914). She was a teacher for many years and died in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

The book with Ms. Freeman’s signature, now in the Cotsen Library collection, was probably owned by her as a child, not as a teacher for use with her students; she probably she taught students who were a bit more mature than the book’s intended audience.

Faustina Freeman was also active in the Provincetown Art Association as an adult, and her descendant still holds small oil paintings in the family collection that she created, so the artwork on display in this book may well have been a harbinger of her adult interests and talents.

The Cotsen Library is grateful for the additional information!

The Secret Life of Plants…

Posted on April 27, 2011 by Jeff Barton

And dolls and inanimate objects… not to mention insects, birds, and other animals.

One of my favorite old Twilight Zone episodes imagines what happens to department store mannequins “after hours”: they come to life with human interactions and desires–including the desire to see the world of real people outside the store… Rod Serling was widely (and rightly) praised for imagining the interior lives of inanimate objects, animating them, and imbuing them with “humanity.”

Tenniel’s famed illustrations of anthropomorphized playing cards in Alice in Wonderland.

Yet a reader of nineteenth-century children’s books will find nothing all that startling about inanimate objects coming to life. We’re all familiar with the pack of playing cards that springs to life in Alice in Wonderland led by the notorious Queen of Hearts (“Off with her head!”)–although truth be told, animated playing cards appeared earlier, in William Newbery’s History of the King and Queen of Spades (published in the early 1800s).

And several relatively early Warne toy book titles present similar imaginative renderings, using the toy book’s unusual synergy between text and illustrations. In Warne’s Jack in the Box (issued between 1866 and 1881), a Christmas gift jack-in-the-box magically seems to animate himself and he adopts a changing series of different costumes and personas:sailor, grenadier, ploughman, carpenter, jester, harlequin, and back into a sailor. Three-quarter page chromoxylographs vividly present the changes described in the verse text and show the children audience’s delight at them.

Frontispiece ill. depicts Violet as a doll handed over to Fanny, and last ill. returns Violet to an inanimate state as Fanny the now-mature Fanny passes her along.

And in Warne’s Life of a Doll, issued between 1867 and 1868, Violet, the doll belonging to a little girl named Fanny, is presented as a play-thing in England who somehow comes to life and accompanies her mistress on a journey overseas when Fanny’s colonel father deploys to India. As Fanny’s constant traveling companion–much like other female traveling companions common in fiction of the time–Violet “becomes a great traveler” and is pictured visiting “exotic” sights in Indiaand later being received at the French court,” where she receives a diamond locket from Empress Eugenie, who has “heard of the little English girl’s walking doll.”(Eugenie fled France for England in 1870 with the onset of the Franco-Prussian War, which would seemingly confirm a publication date before then.) But after Fanny’s family returns to England a number of years later, the now-older Fanny “no longer cared to play with dolls,” so she gives Violet to her younger cousin, Amelia.

Fairly standard narrative fare, but extended here by the accompanying graphical element. Violet is first described and pictured as an inanimate doll. Then, the text narrates that Violet “stood up” by Fanny at a party, and most of the chromoxylographed illustration panels in the story depict her as an ambulatory active entity, magically imbued with the ability to move through means unspecified. The very last quarter-page illustration presents her as a mere doll again though, as she is being handed over to a new owner, thus returning her to the inanimate state she had at the beginning of the story.

What sort of imaginative alchemy, or narrative “instability,” is this? The apparent answer, I think, lies in the last lines of text, which tell us that Fanny herself “wrote this life of a doll,” so she is the fictive author of the narrative. But while the text may be Fanny’s, the illustrations seemingly present what she herself imaginatively experiences when her doll “comes to life.” A reader could read Fanny’s text alone as a child’s figurative speaking while daydreaming about playing with her favorite doll (just think of how most American Girl advertisements present girls and their dolls). But the illustrations clearly show Violet as a moving, apparently living, entity–and they thus add a literal aspect to the overall presentation of her coming to life.

Most ills. present Violet as “a walking doll,” as when she amazes the “Hindoos,” who bow in homage, or receives a locket from the Empress. Perhaps Fanny’s child’s imagination is the transformative force?

Illustration in Life of a Doll thus functions in an almost metatextual way, commenting on the text and expanding its meaning to a reader/viewer in a way that seemingly goes far beyond the role we usually assign to illustrations “depicting” a narrative or “accompanying” it.

It shouldn’t really surprise us that the imaginative feats in Life of a Doll and Jack in the Box take place in are heavily-illustrated “toy books,” any more than it should that Alice is virtually inconceivable without Tenniel’s illustrations. Words alone can hardly convey the amazing spectacle of objects coming to life without the imaginative aid of vivid illustrations, in particular to a child reader perhaps more inclined to read a text and the events it describes more literally that an adult would. Words use rhetorical or language-based devices, such as simile or metaphor, to describe events and bring them to life; illustration depicts life, or at least one way of rendering it. The modes of presentation–and the reader-perceiver’s negotiation with them–are thus different, and expansively open-ended to new meanings, potentially complementary, but still new and different and potentially independent of the text.

Speaking of anthropomorphized entities, children’s books of course abound with all sorts of animals dressing, speaking, and acting like people, particularly in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth centuries. Think of the works of Beatrix Potter or Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows. Then, of course, there are older, traditional fairy stories like The White Cat, The Hind in the Wood, or The Frog Prince, the last two famously reimagined by Walter Crane in his toy book series. The list of animals dressed up and acting like people–often reenacting human frailties and foibles in a satiric manner–goes on and on. (Just think of all the personified animals in Aesop’s Fables.)

Walter Crane’s “blushing Rose” (Queen Summer) Inspired by Mrs. Rose? Queen Summer. London: Cassell & Co., [1891] (Cotsen 9572)

Plants may be “less fertile ground” (sorry!) for such imaginative renderings, and there seem to be far fewer instances where we find them brought to life in children’s books. But Crane imagines worlds of animated plants sprung to life in Flora’s Feast (1889) and Queen Summer (1891)–which he both wrote and illustrated, again suggesting how language and image–the verbal and the visual–can be conjoint in presenting objects, or at least plants, as they become animated. Queen Flora and Queen Summer both waken their plant dominions, which come forth in masque-like processions of animated courtly flowers and plants, presented in brilliant chromoxylographed colors, thanks to the printing of Edmund Evans. Color-printed work like that wouldn’t have been technically possible just a relatively few years before Crane rendered them.

Frontispiece of Mrs. Rose (with family members?) planning her party. The Rose’s Breakfast. London: Harris, 1808 (Cotsen)

Despite the pleasure of having worked with titles by Crane and Carroll via my Cotsen cataloging, John Harris’s The Rose’s Breakfast still came as a surprise and a delight when I came across it recently. In this story, envious shrubs and flowers, having heard of the delights of The Peacock at Home, The Butterfly’s Ball, The Grasshopper’s Feast, and The Elephant’s Ball (all works in which insects and animals spring to personified life for festive rites) plan a “gala” of their own, organized by Mrs. Rose.

The anonymous author of The Rose’s Breakfast imagines a problem though–and a deliciously imaginative solution. Flowers “want the organs of speech” so how can such an event be organized? Simple: Mrs. Rose, “in high beauty” issues invitations by “send[ing] out her fragrance to invite the company” of plants and flowers. But what of Mr. Rose, identified as “Mr. Pluto Rose”? (A Pluto Rose is a type of very dark red, late-seasoned-blooming, flat-petaled rose.) Well, the author tells us that “he never interfered with the pursuits of his wife; he only declared he should not appear, and as he was “a very dark-looking Rose without any sweet,” the writer tells us, and Mrs. Rose is “delighted at the declaration,” so she can have a free hand in her society machinations. (Intimations of the revenge of Persephone on her dark, reclusive consort?)

The stout Lord Oak, with Britannic lion and his fleet in the background. The Rose’s Breakfast. (Cotsen)

Much planning for the party of the season ensures, entailing the assistance of Mrs. Larch and Lady Acacia, the latter eager to introduce “her niece Robinia from America” to society. Visitors from abroad accept, including “all the cedars and firs,” except for Mrs. Larch’s “cousin from Lebanon” and even all the forest trees agree to attend, except the haughty Lord Oak, depicted in his Nelsonesque Napoleonic admiral’s uniform, who “never condescended to go to such meetings.”

The breakfast party enjoys quite a cast of characters, beautifully illustrated in hand-colored engravings and wittily described, among them, Mrs. Birch, “dressed with an elegant lightness of drapery,” Lady Aspen, “continually shaking her leaves as if she was twittering,” the “famous Roses” (all the Henrys, Edwards and Richard the Third), Mrs. Myrtle, Lady Orange-Tree, Lord Heliotropium, Mr. Monkey-Plant, the Evergreens of rank and nobility, “many Laurels,” Mrs. Lily with her elegant head-dress, Lord Tulip with the Duchess of Hyacinth, and Lady Sensitive.

Lady Sensitive quivers at her invitation, but not in sweet anticipation. The Rose’s Breakfast. (Cotsen)

Much like Shelley’s description of Lady Sensitive’s namesake in his poem, “The Sensitive Plant” (first published in 1820), Lady Sensitive is illustrated as a Plain Jane with a simple dress, or as Shelley described her: having “no bright flower” since “radiance and odour are not its dower… It desires what it has not, the beautiful.” The similar presentation of the sensitive plant and 1820 publication date of Shelley’s poem invite the question: Did Shelley read the anonymous Rose’s Breakfast, which first appeared in 1808, when the poet would have been only sixteen years old, and perhaps take inspiration from it?

Courtly fashion avatar, Lord Tulip, with a dowager-like Duchess of Hyacinth. The Rose’s Breakfast. (Cotsen)

But amidst all the splendor of The Rose’s Breakfast’s plant-world’s version of “society” in its finery, some guests do not behave with appropriate decorum: Mrs. Ivy is too clinging to her social betters, the Hothouse plants socialize only in their own circle,” and “the Nettles, Thistles, and Firge were very troublesome.” And some plants are not honored with invitations at all, as Mrs. Rose’s breakfast apes courtly standards; the entire Kitchen Garden is left off the guest list, “notwithstanding the elegant simplicity” of many of them. Brilliant floral raiment trumps personality or merit in Mrs. Rose’s considerations.

Some members of the Kitchen Garden, pictured as distinctly working class. The Rose’s Breakfast. (Cotsen)

Among those disappointed are: Mrs. Onion, Mrs. Cabbage, Mr. Bean–all depicted as distinctly working class–and Mrs. Bramble, the latter who “was very sharp at not being invited.” Also left off the guest list are: many “perennials,” apparently being somewhat past their peak at this time of year, and the Misses Crocus, Violet, and Jonquil, and Mrs. Almond because “their beauty was gone by.” Clearly Mr’s Rose’s event is an summertime English garden party!

The social trials and tribulations of hostessing ultimately prove almost too much for Mrs. Rose, much like a contemporary, society-obsessed Jane Austen social butterfly. She becomes “so fatigued” by “her dissipation” that she completely loses her bloom and comes out “no more this season.” She is saved only by the professional ministrations of Dr. Gardener and the lavish care of her maid, Valerian, who presumably exerts a suitably calming effect on her frazzled mistress. Notably, neither of these pivotal, but simply-attired characters is presented to us in an illustration–vanity, vanity…

Detail of Mrs Rose, with her invitation plainly legible: Mrs Rose presents her Fragrance. The Rose’s Breakfast. (Cotsen)

The “instructional” moral of the “amusing” dazzle of words and illustrations in the story finally becomes explicit, although there have certainly been strong intimations of this beforehand. It is only with “the greatest difficulty” that the struggling Dr. Gardener manages to “keep her [Mrs. Rose] properly clothed” (imitations of a distracted King Lear?) via an enforced “confinement.” Despite everything, Mrs. Rose remains “a slave to fashion, and nearly became one of its martyrs.” Apparently incorrigible, she “still possesses so much vanity and lightness of manner” that she obeys Dr. Gardener only because of Pluto Rose’s injunction about “propriety”, but we readers know better, having learned our lesson. While Mrs. Rose has apparently learned nothing from her travails, we have been instructed by the events in the story, as well as thoroughly delighted by its interplay of language and illustration.

Publication History Note:
The Rose‘s Breakfast was issued by Harris in a single edition of 1808, printed by Henry Bryer, an apparent testimony to its lack of lasting popularity with readers. (In contrast, The Butterfly’s Ball and The Peacock at Home, both went through quite a number of Harris editions after their initial printings.)

The Rose‘s Breakfast was later included in F.V. Lucas’s collection of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century stories: Forgotten Tales of Long Ago (c. 1906), where Lucas, in his Introduction, termed it: “poverty-stricken in fancy and very paltry in tone.” Lucas added: “I am amazed to think I ever marked it for inclusion [in the collection] at all … the idea of making beautiful flowers as mean-spirited as trumpery men and women can be being totally undesirable [but] it was too late to take it out… Possibly its badness may incite someone to write a better, and that would be my justification.”

The full text of the Rose’s Breakfast is available online (although, sadly without illustrations) at: http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/53079/

Cotsen Children’s Library

Princeton University

Marks in Books #1: “Our Girls Stories”