Scotland\u2019s Early Literature for Children Initiative (SELCIE) is an organisation which aims to rediscover Scotland\u2019s heritage of publishing for children. Founding member, Sarah Dunnigan, kindly invited me to have a look in the Museum of Childhood archives held at the City Chambers, which I have been planning to do for a while and finally got the chance! In the basement, there is a room full of boxes which Sarah and her team have catalogued and another room with older books and chap books dating back to the seventeenth century.<\/p>\n
The collection provides a historical context to my research project on cultural diversity in picture books made for children.\u00a0In the archives, I am looking for clues of what\u00a0ideologies may be\u00a0included in children\u2019s literature and how this may have changed over time. One of the books that caught my eye was a binding of Hungarian folk tales, which has\u00a0a cornflower blue cover printed with\u00a0yellow, green and red folk-style decorations (there is a picture below). It has a very orientalist (in the pejorative sense) preface written by Leo Sarkadi: \u201cDuring all these centuries they [Hungarians] were the key to Europe, and as such often a mighty stronghold that held the wild eastern hordes at bay\u201d (Pogany, 1913). At the time of publishing if this book, expanding\u00a0empires were striving for cultural domination, which may be why Sarkadi describes these nations derogatorily and collectively as \u2018eastern hordes\u2019.<\/p>\n
![\"fairy](\"http:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/selcie\/files\/2017\/03\/the-hungarian-fairy-book-202x300.jpg\")
Cover to The Hungarian Fairy Book, by Nandor and Willy Pogany<\/p><\/div>\n
Clues to a propaganda against non-western\u00a0civilisations- such as the Ottoman Empire \u2013 were evident in literature as can be deduced from this\u00a0excerpt. It reveals a glaring\u00a0example of western hegemony\u00a0embedded through the subversive power of literature. The characters illustrated by Pogany \u00a0allude to charming tales told by wholesome and well-meaning storytellers such as the sketch I made below of a Hungarian woman below who is carrying baskets as if\u00a0after a harvest \u2013 a familiar and modest role. However, the preface suggests the agenda of the book may not be as apolitical as it seems,\u00a0instead it suggests\u00a0certain cultures are\u00a0of higher value than others, as well as that a conformist nature is\u00a0a virtuous trait.<\/p>\n
![\"Hungarian](\"http:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/selcie\/files\/2017\/03\/Hungarian_Woman-285x300.jpg\")
My sketch of a Hungarian lady (maybe the source of the original stories?) who ornaments the end of some of the folk tales printed in \u2018The Hungarian Fairy-Book\u2019 by Nandor Pogany and illustrated by Willy Pogany<\/p><\/div>\n
I also found an edition of Goblin Market<\/em>\u00a0(1893) by Christina Rossetti and illustrated by Laurence Housman with very intricate and spindly art-deco styled illustrations.The Goblin Market<\/em> is a poem\u00a0about two sisters, one of whom is seduced by\u00a0the fruit of the goblins, and how they manage to overcome their ill-fate with sisterly care. I copied the typography on the front and a little goblin-like creature that seems to be hunched up in the heart of a chestnut:<\/p>\n My sketch of the typography and a goblin on the cover and front page of \u2018The Goblin Market\u2019 by Rossetti and illustrated by Housman (1893)<\/p><\/div>\n The illustrations by Housman are very decorative and, like the poem, heavy with symbolism and visual meaning. Christina Rossetti and Laurence Housman were both part\u00a0of the Pre-Raphaelite movement which reacted against realism by revivifying medieval ideas of chivalry and romance, drawing heavily on archetypal imagery common in folktale and medieval romances (Roe, [online]). Archetypal imagery, or motif, is a subject\u00a0I am particularly interested in as it\u00a0tends form\u00a0links between tales originating in disparate places (Propp, 1990 [1968]). For this reason, I use\u00a0storytelling motifs to make illustration with the\u00a0aim to create intercultural picture books. The SELCIE project allows me the opportunity to see how former illustrators have used symbol and engineered it to carry cultural meaning, which allows me in turn to question\u00a0what ideological issues arise from my own work.<\/p>\n The binding for The \u2018Goblin Market\u2019 designed by Housman<\/p><\/div>\n References<\/strong><\/p>\n Images:<\/p>\n Figure 1: Laurence Housman\u2019s cover design of The Goblin Market<\/em> by Christina Rossetti (1983) [online] http:\/\/www.victorianweb.org\/art\/design\/books\/cooke8.html<\/a> Accessed 17\/03\/2017<\/p>\n Figure 2: My sketch of a Hungarian woman (possibly harvesting, perhaps the storyteller).<\/p>\n Figure 3: My sketch of Housman\u2019s typography and illustration for The Goblin Market by Rossetti.<\/p>\n Figure 4: Cooke, Simon (2014)\u00a0Laurence Housman as a book binding<\/em> [online] Text:<\/p>\n Pogany, Nandor and illustrated by Willy Pogany\u00a0(1913)\u00a0The Hungarian Fairy-Book<\/em> Propp, Vladimir (1990 [1968]) The Morphology of the Folktale<\/em> USA: University of Texas Press<\/p>\n Roe, Dinah The Pre-Raphaelites<\/em> [online]\u00a0https:\/\/www.bl.uk\/romantics-and-victorians\/articles\/the-pre-raphaelites Accessed: 17\/03\/2017<\/p>\n Rossetti, Christina and illustrated by Laurence Housman (1893) Goblin Market<\/em> London:Macmillan<\/p>\n Said, Edward (2001, [1978]) Orientalism<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0UK: Penguin<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.edinburghmuseums.org.uk\/Venues\/Museum-of-Childhood<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n This special blog post has been written by our new artist-in-residence, Katie Forrester. Katie is a PhD research student of Illustration at Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland, UK. You can find her blog, ‘Katie’s Illustration’,\u00a0here.\u00a0 Scotland\u2019s Early … Continue reading ![\"Goblin\"](\"http:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/selcie\/files\/2017\/03\/ChristinaRossetti_GoblinMarket-300x296.jpg\")
![\"Goblin](\"http:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/selcie\/files\/2017\/03\/Goblin-Market-Cover-Housman-184x300.jpg\")
\ndesigner\u00a0http:\/\/www.victorianweb.org\/art\/design\/books\/cooke8.html<\/p>\n
\nLondon: T. Fisher Unwin<\/p>\n