{"id":704,"date":"2017-08-25T09:55:51","date_gmt":"2017-08-25T09:55:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/selcie\/?p=704"},"modified":"2017-08-25T09:55:51","modified_gmt":"2017-08-25T09:55:51","slug":"a-dolls-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/selcie\/2017\/08\/25\/a-dolls-life\/","title":{"rendered":"A Doll’s Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

The book vault of the Museum of Childhood spans the globe both imaginatively and geographically. Russian fairy tales and handmade Japanese books nestle in boxes alongside home-grown favourites such as Peter Pan<\/em> or Treasure Island. <\/em>This often makes our task of sifting through the archive one of curiosity and unexpected delight. And the common thread that links these volumes is that each has somehow made a journey to the Museum\u2019s collection. In that sense, there is always a local connection to each book, no matter how far-flung or remote it might seem.<\/p>\n

Part of our exhibition, \u2018Growing Up With Books\u2019<\/strong> (opening June 2018), will celebrate the well-travelled nature and diversity of the Museum\u2019s archive \u2014\u00a0 a little history of the binding and interconnected story of children\u2019s literature. In today\u2019s blog, Sarah presents a \u2018taster\u2019, or miniature, of that aspect in describing a small illustrated French book which we pulled out of a box one day.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

\"La<\/p>\n

La Poup\u00e9e Bien Elev\u00eae <\/em>by Julie Delafaye-Br\u00e9hier (c1780-1850) is not especially well-known today \u00a0(or at least beyond critical histories of French children\u2019s literature), though it was translated into English as The Well-Bred Doll <\/em>a decade later. The Museum\u2019s edition was published in 1843 in Paris as part of P.C. Lehuby\u2019s Librairie de l\u2019enfance et de la jeunesse<\/em>.\u00a0 In an earlier blog<\/a>, Niamh noted how you should never judge a book by its cover. So too this one for its beautiful jewel-like coloured exterior almost looks like a medieval prayer book.<\/p>\n

\"La<\/p>\n

Once opened, though, you encounter the story of C\u00e9line and Laurette, two young girls who happily discover a doll one day whom they then adopt, nurture, and teach as their tiny \u2018pupil\u2019. The little group of three then begin their education in both outdoor and indoor classrooms:\u00a0 the garden, their chamber, even in a \u2018cabinet noir\u2019 to which the doll is once consigned as a punishment!<\/p>\n

\"La<\/p>\n

\"la<\/p>\n

This is clearly a book about girlhood \u2014\u00a0 the \u2018correct\u2019 ideological formation and nurturing of ideal young femininity. Dress, deportment, conduct, manners, and speech are all uppermost in the little girls\u2019 minds as they \u2018fashion\u2019 their little pupil; and such concerns are the prerogative of the upper and middle classes. \"laDelafaye-Br\u00e9hier\u2019s novel first appeared in a series published by Alexis Eymery who founded a librairie d\u2019education <\/em>in 1801, and was the author himself of moral writings for young girls. \u00a0And she herself was a prolific writer of clearly didactic and instructive writing for children and adolescents.\u00a0 Interestingly, though, she also published a version of Robinson Crusoe<\/em> for young readers \u2014\u00a0 a robinsonnade <\/em>called The French Robinson or the Little Castaway <\/em>(1827). Yet as Joseph Acquisto comments, this as much about the hero\u2019s sensibility and sensitivity, as his courage and \u2018manliness\u2019; he cares about his mother, for example.[i]<\/a><\/p>\n

I think something of this softer didacticism can be seen in La Poup\u00e9e. <\/em>The doll is a loving gift from their mother, bought surreptitiously at a f\u00eate and planted as a surprise amidst their garden for the little girls to find.<\/p>\n

\"la<\/p>\n

This maternal love in turn is reciprocated in the girls\u2019 nurture of the doll \u2014 \u00a0sometimes severe (as in that notorious chapter, \u2018Vite, au cabinet noir!\u2019) but tender for the most part, and also evinced in their care for their pupil\u2019s intellect, for she is taught to be a voracious and skilled reader. \u00a0The girls may be schooled into the \u2018proper\u2019 role of motherhood; but this is also a resolutely feminocentric world where the continuities and affinities between mothers and daughters, and between sisters, are vital.<\/p>\n

\"education\"<\/p>\n

And, finally, we can perhaps see how it was also a story for children to curl up with and enjoy simply because it communicates the sheer delight of doll-owning! As Kenneth Gross writes, \u2018the truth and need of the child\u2019s imagining of life in the doll she or he takes up\u2019 is fundamental \u2018in negotiating the child\u2019s passage into a world of adult affections and demands and losses\u2019.[ii]<\/a> \u00a0Freud and Kleist, among many other writers, have shown us how the doll in particular, inanimate but with an approximation to life, is an uncanny presence, and an embodiment of imagination itself. A wander round the Museum of Childhood\u2019s own extraordinary collection of dolls is enough to convince you of this, not least their current exhibition, \u2018It\u2019s Alive! <\/em>Mechanical marvels from the House of Automata\u2019<\/em>\u00a0(more information here<\/a>)!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The illustrations in La Poup\u00e9e<\/em> beautifully depict the children\u2019s pleasure in the doll\u2019s \u2018coming to life\u2019, as it were, even though they speak and think for her, the text carefully tells us, as if to disavow us of any belief in Hoffmann-esque magic. This is simply the magic of play.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

La Poup\u00e9e<\/em> is one of many miniature gems in the Museum\u2019s archive\u00a0 \u2014\u00a0\u00a0 little embodiments of the history of early children\u2019s literature in Scotland, Europe, and far beyond. We don\u2019t know who owned it, or its provenance, though undoubtedly there is some kind of local connection threaded into the story of how it came to be in a box in the vault. But we do know because of the beautiful pristine condition of the book and its jewel-like mosaic cover, we can be sure that it was much loved, just like C\u00e9line and Laurette\u2019s doll.<\/p>\n

[i]<\/a> See Joseph Acquisto, Crusoes and Other Castaways in Modern French Literature: Solitary Adventures<\/em> (University of Delaware Press, 2012).<\/p>\n

[ii]<\/a> \u2018Introduction\u2019, On Dolls, <\/em>edited by Kenneth Gross (Notting Hill Editions Ltd, 2012), p. xii.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This post was written by Sarah<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The book vault of the Museum of Childhood spans the globe both imaginatively and geographically. Russian fairy tales and handmade Japanese books nestle in boxes alongside home-grown favourites such as Peter Pan or Treasure Island. This often makes our task … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":166,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,15,35,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-girls","category-education-learning","category-illustrated-books","category-women-writers"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/selcie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/selcie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/selcie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/selcie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/166"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/selcie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=704"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/selcie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":713,"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/selcie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704\/revisions\/713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/selcie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/selcie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/selcie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}