Picture Book Illustrated by Henry Thiriet This colorful picture book was published by B. Sirven in Paris. It's a bit different than the most popular version, so we will take time to explore the fairy tale with the abundant help of illustrations signed by Henry Thiriet, one of the leading poster artists of his time. The book is printed in two different techniques, like many similar books in the first half of the 20th century. While everybody wanted color books, colors were still expensive and many publishers tried to save a dime or two by combining full color with two- or three-color printing. In this case, we have exactly one half full-color pictures out of 16 (cover, back, and the double spread in the middle are four of them) and the other half in a combination of orange (color of life) with blue or purple (both colors are associated with other worlds) what is perfectly in tune with the story where death or at least threat of death plays so important part but life eventually wins. You can explore the symbolic meanings of colors but don't forget to come back! The story starts without the usual introduction about the king and queen yearning for the child and throwing a party when finally the baby girl is born. Poor kid is cursed right at the beginning - on the book cover! While the wicked fairy gave the baby the gift of death, another fairy promised the worried royal couple everything would be all right. The girl will not die after pricking her finger with the spindle. She will only fall asleep. A very deep sleep that can last for a one hundred years. The king was obviously not satisfied with the prediction and took some action on his own. If the girl dies or falls to sleep only after hurting herself with a spindle, the situation could be avoided if she never gets in contact with a spindle, right? So he banned all spindles in the kingdom. What's the point of being the king if you can't ban something so dangerous as spindles? Like it or not, life doesn't take orders from anybody and kings are no exception. When her time came, the princess found a lady who was spinning. The girl was obviously curious. She had never seen a spindle before and she wanted to try some spinning. Yes, she instantly pricked her finger. Just like the prophecy said, she fell down and fell asleep. The old lady yelled for help and people came right away. Too late, of course. All the best doctors of the kingdom came and none of them could find a solution. The princess was asleep and nothing could wake her up. The verdict was unanimous. There is nothing to do. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Or at least some magic, in our case. The nice fairy from the beginning of the story came in her spectacular carriage, drawn by a pair of dragons. She came to fulfill her promise about a one-hundred-year sleep. With one small modification - everybody in court should sleep too, so when the girl awakes, her world would be pretty much the same. The fairy went through the castle and with her magic wand made everybody asleep. Everybody but the king and the queen. They will stay awake but not here. They won't see their daughter awake anymore. The king and the queen are leaving the sleepy castle symbolically passing their legacy to the next generation. This is an interesting twist to the best-known versions where parents fall asleep as well, so they can rejoin their daughter after the centennial siesta. While there is no author credited for this picture book (only the illustrator), we can presume that the Perrault version with a lesser number of fairies (brothers Grimm use twelve fairies plus the wicked one) served as the base of the story. Yet in none of both versions, do the parents leave the castle and the daughter. If we want to find such a version, we should go way back in time to Gianbattista Basile's Pentamerone with Sun, Moon, and Talia. So this is a conglomerate of at least three older versions of Sleeping Beauty. There is also much more about the Sleeping Beauty messages if you are in the mood for historical and psychological journeys. The word about the princess in the castle sleeping for many many years evolved into a legend. Many brave men tried to find her but none succeeded. One day a prince tries his luck and we can see him inquiring about the beautiful girl waiting to be rescued. He has to make his way through the thorns (they are present only in Grimm's version) to reach the legendary castle. And he made it! Everybody around the castle was still sleeping. Everybody in the castle was sleeping too. All the people and even the animals were asleep. Finally, the prince finds the princess and awakes her. It was love at first sight, of course. Everybody else in the castles woke up as well. A splendid wedding follows and everybody lives happily ever after. It looks like this book is part of a series but I couldn't find more about it. I just managed to find a few illustrations also made by Henri Thiriet for a similar picture book titled Cinderella (Cendrillon). I hope I can deliver more in the future. In the meantime enjoy the pictures from this book and share them with everybody who might be interested.
By the way, the same author also illustrated a book wit all Perrault's fairy tales and you can look at it right here.
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Diamonds and toads is an English translation of Perrault's The Fairies. It's a story about two sisters. One is kind and the other rude. Both came into the same situation where reacted accordingly to their characters. One was rewarded, the other punished. The story was illustrated by Kate Greenaway and published in the collection called Aunt Louisa's Big Picture Books and also included in Aunt Louisa's Nursery Favorite, edited by Laura Valentine.
This edition of Bluebeard is just one of many illustrated by the same artist and engraved and printed by Edmund Evans. We had already had a chance to see how Evans illustrated the story about Bluebeard and it's obvious we are dealing with completely different kinds of quality. Crane paid full attention to every single detail, he often even rewrote the text, he made his own fonts and used so tiny details it's hard to believe how much he produced in his lifetime. Evans, on the other hand, was a businessman. When he sniffed a chance to make some profit, he jumped right into it, never bothering with artistic dilemmas Crane had. These differences eventually ended their collaboration but we can still enjoy numerous projects of the two. This edition is one such example. As we can see in the title, it's a so-called reissue (Bluebeard by Crane had at least five reissues at Evans), but we don't know the exact year of publishing. Anyway, we are dealing with a quality copy, with endpapers before and after the main content and a special page with a list of other titles in the same collection of Crane's picture books. Being limited to a number of pictures, Crane went right into the action. Bluebeard is leaving home and he is giving away his keys. But can he trust his new wife? Will she obey his command? There is a chamber in the house she is forbidden to enter! She took care of the property, she invited people to enjoy in the house, just like Bluebeard told her, yet she couldn't resist. The temptation was too much for her. She had to open the door and there was the most horrible scene she ever had seen. All previous wives were hanged on the wall, floor covered with blood! The key to the forbidden room fell on the floor and became covered with the blood. She couldn't clean it, no matter what she did. When her husband returned, he immediately knew what happened. His dark secret was revealed. His trust was betrayed. His wife entered the chamber with dead bodies of Bluebeard's ex-wives and she is about to become one of them as well! Her begging was futile. Her punishment should be executed as soon as possible. He just gave her a chance to say her prayers, to prepare for leaving the world of living creatures. She sent her sister to the top of the tower. Can she call for their brothers and save Bluebeard's wife's life? Bluebeard couldn't wait any longer. He wanted her dead. She was still begging for mercy, trying to steal a few more moments, to improve her chances of being rescued by her brothers. Brothers were approaching very fast but Bluebeard had his sword ready... Lucky for her brothers were faster than Bluebeard's revenge. They killed him and she became a very rich widow! This picture book about Bluebeard was published in 1898.
Puss in Boots is probably the most characteristic fairy tale by Charles Perrault. There are several reasons for that claim: 1. Its main theme is climbing up the social ladder with clear allusions to the circumstances in the court of Louis XIV. Some things are reserved for aristocracy only and for other life is just not fair. 2. While rich and noble enjoy their privileges skillful servants can still skim some (or even most) of the cream if they play their cards right. This means they need to learn to talk the language of their master - language of cheating, pretending, and stealing. 3. The biography of Charles Perrault is in many points similar to the social ascent of poor miller's boy. He also had a magical helper (first, his brother, then minister Foucalt), he was also kissing up to the king, he also played all kinds of games to reach and strengthen his position in the court, right to the marriage with a beautiful (and very young) princess. 4. While we can easily find predecessors to Puss in Boots (often titled The Master Cat) in Giovanni Francesco Straparola's Constantino Fortunato and Giambattista Basile's Cagliuso this classic fairy tale doesn't belong to any of the fairy tale collections published after 16th century. Except for Perrault's Tales of Mother Goose, of course. Brothers Grimm included it in their first version of Kinder and Hausmarchen but skipped in later ones. The reason was, of course, French origin of the tale which seemed inappropriate considering the fact Napoleon occupied the majority of German countries at the time of publishing. 5. Puss in Boots is loaded with Perrault's ironic, sometimes almost sarcastic descriptions focused on the relationships in a society where clothes make the man and one's image overpowers one's acts. The society where servants de fact ran the world yet they were still treated as a kind of furniture. Here is a short summary with illustrations by John Hassall: The miller had three sons. When he died the oldest got the mill, the middle the donkey, and the youngest the cat. At first, boy wanted to kille the cat and use his skin for a pair of gloves. But the cat convinced him to get him a pair of boots, so he'll show him his real value. Puss sprang up and shut the rabbit in With stolen goods the cat started building false identity for his master. He became Marquis Carabas. Puss ran after them crying: "Help!" "You must tell him that this field belongs to my master!" "I am glad to see you, king," puss said. This is how a poor miller's boy became Marquis carabas. with stolen presents, borrowed clothes, stolen property, and, above all, with a skillful helper - the puss in boots.
image credits: https://john-hassall-fan-page.page.tl/Puss-in-Boots.htm The book was published in London by Blackie & Son Limited, probably in 1914 Cinderella is known in more than thousand variants all over the world. Yet, Perrault's Cendrillon is the one which became a standard on which Disney's version as probably the best known of all is built. Her we have it as John Rea Neill saw it. It is one of many cheap editions and would be probably forgotten very soon if not illustrated by one of the most prolific American illustrators of the time. The books was published in 1908 in Chicago by Reilly and Briton company as number eight in the series of twelve books called Childrens Red Books. Each of the books presented two stories for children, all of them adapted to fit the format and this book was no exception. The Cinderella (The Little Glass Slipper) was the first of the two stories in this volume. The Three Bears was the second. You'll notice all illustrations, although in full color, were done in low quality printing technique with limited set of shades for red, yellow and green. Whole book, together with all decorative elements and the other story (The Three Bears) is available on this address.
Edmund Evans (1826-1905) was English illustrator, engraver, printer, and businessman who is for many reasons the most influential man in the history of picture books. He actually created a whole market of books for children which of course already existed before his birth but became huge business only after color printing techniques were improved. He was very much involved in development of marketing and distribution and one of the first printers who started promoting illustrators who were before treated as inferior to 'real' painters. The picture book History of Bluebeard is one of countless variations of Perrault's fairy tale which is not very popular today. The reason is simple - the title character is a mass murderer. But in the second half of the 19th and first decades of the 20th century Bluebeard belonged among classics and people loved reading and buying it. Color pictures in this edition, published by Routledge, Warne, and Routledge as a part of the series Aunt Mavor's Toy Books, around 1880, were huge attraction and true magnet among the audience. As you can notice the printing process was far from perfection, with colors escaping across the line borders and many minor flaws, yet very appealing. There is no credit for the illustrator in this edition. All available resources simply credit Evans and it's probably the best answer because the engraver effectively had more power in execution of an illustration than the artist (if it wasn't Evans). We can further speculate he didn't draw complete set of presented illustrations. Use of numerous (and almost always anonymous assistants) was very usual for the 19th century. Another time related thing worth mentioning is the choice of portraying the Bluebeard as a man from Orient, with a turban, wide pants, and a scimitar. As you can see, the color of his beard on the cover is not blue at all. The beginning of the story is already quite eerie. We are informed about a mysterious man who supposed to be married several times but all his wives vanished without any trace. There are rumors about heir destiny yet nobody knows what really happened. When a lovely Fatima is introduced to this seemingly powerful and extremely rich man, the family decided the can make a great couple. Thing went great for the first month. Then he had to leave the castle. He left all the keys in the hands of his wife with a warning. One of the keys opens a forbidden chamber which should stay locked until he returns. Fatima tried to resist the temptation for some time. It was too much for her. One day she decided to open the door into the secret chamber. The scene inside was terrifying. The room was full of dead women. She obviously found her husbands ex-wives! Now she knows why she shouldn't open the door. Right after that Bluebeard returned home. He immediately demanded his keys back. The belong to the master of the house, aren't they? There's a problem. When Fatima opened the door, she was so shocked the key felt to the ground in the puddle of blood. It turned red and she couldn't clean it any more. We can see the moment of returning of the keys with one of them colored red. Treacherous red. Now we can clearly (and graphically) imagine what happened to previous Bluebeard's wives. He gave them the power with an exception, a temptation which can be interpreted as a test of trust and faithfulness. They all failed. They were all killed. Fatima is next on the list. She already knows what is waiting for her. By the way, the illustration of the Bluebeard dragging his unreliable wife up the stairs, is by far the most well-known from this particular edition of the Perrault's fairy tale. Fortunately for Fatima her husband wasn't completely merciless. She got a few minutes to say her prayers before the execution. She used her time to call for help. Will her siblings see her waiving? Can her brother come fast enough to save her? Yes! The brothers arrived before Bluebeard killed Fatima. The men fought and Bluebeard was killed.
This is the end of a serial killer. Even more. His widow inherited his fortune and soon met more appropriate husband. They lived happily ever after. To find out more about the Bluebeard, a fairy tale falling out of fashion, visit: https://hubpages.com/relationships/Bluebeard |
Who Was Charles Perrault?He wrote only eight fairy tales in prose and three in verse, yet he is rightfully called the father of modern fairy tale. Archives
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