Book Study:
Aunt Louisa’s
Nursery Favourite
Melissa Woods
LIBR280_12
24 April 2013
Professor Beth
Wrenn-Estes
Victorian Era
The World in 1869 & 1870
Author
Illustrators
Printer
Publishers
Frederick Warne & Co.
Scribner, Welford & Co.
Place of publication
Title page
Rubrication
Incipit and explicit
Preface
Collation Paper (watermarks?)
Page layout
Foliation/pagination
Printer's Device- Type
Color printing
Decoration
Illumination/Painting
Binding
Endleaves and flyleaves
Conclusion/Summary
References
Towards the end
of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, Victorian England was
beginning to understand childhood as a fundamentally different period of life
than adulthood (McDowell, 2009). This
understanding fostered the belief that children had special needs for
protection and education. As a result,
institutions specifically segregated from adults, such as playgrounds and
schools, developed (McDowell, 2009).
This Victorian era development, in combination with the mechanization of
printing and the ability and desire to bring print to the masses, fostered what
is now known as the golden age of children’s literature (“book,” n.d.). This period is generally seen as lasting from
the 1860s to 1930s though children’s literature was being written well before
this time (Carpenter, 1985). Scholars
mark the beginning of writing for children as the year 1672, but it is the
nineteenth century is when the trend of writing moralistic or religious texts
for children died down and fantasy took its place (Banerjee, 2007). Additionally, it was not until 1850 that
there was a stable commercial infrastructure for children’s literature and the
sales of genre became a very important part of the publishing trade (Banerjee,
2007). From this golden age, came the
book Aunt Louisa’s Nursery Favourite. During this period, Aunt Louisa was a
name already established with a popular series called the London Toy Book
series and many of these and other Aunt Louisa titles still exist today. This particular book, published in 1870, is a
combination of four nursery stories, in poem and verse. The nursery stories are as follows: Diamonds
and Toads, Dick Whittington, Lily Sweetbriar, and Uncle’s Farm Yard. The book is a well preserved example of
Victorian era children’s literature, produced by some of the more famous
printers and illustrators of the time and as such, it stands as a wonderful
example of the printing styles of that time.
Civic
identity and engagement were seen as extremely important during this
period. In fact, institutions such as
libraries, wash-houses and swimming baths were funded as part of a “determination
to provide working people with the means to improve themselves” (Evans, 2011). The Victorian’s feeling of civic obligation
also fostered a belief in charitable giving.
And as a result, many charitable organizations were formed in the
nineteenth century such as the Society of the Relief of Distress and the
Charity Organisation Society (Evans, 2011).
Around the word,
there were many interesting developments.
For instance, in 1869, the Suez Canal was opened and the first transcontinental
railroad across the United
States Kingdom
of Italy
The book is
credited to Laura Valentine, or Laura Jewry Valentine, who often used the
pseudonym Aunt Louisa. Valentine was
born in 1814 and died in 1899. She has
an impressive bibliography of works for children and adults and it seems that
she was employed by the publisher, Frederick Warne and Co. as an editor
(AbeBooks, Inc., 2013). There are some
cases where she is credited as the author of a work and in those cases she used
her name rather than Aunt Louisa (Letteratura Dimenticata, 2013). It is likely that Valentine was born in England
The illustrator of
Diamonds and Toads, pictured above and the first story in the book, is credited to Kate or
Catherine Greenaway. Ms. Greenaway, is
considered to be one of the more prolific illustrators of her time (Cavendish,
2001). She was born March 17, 1846 in London Slade School France London
The
printer of the illustrations was Joseph Martin Kronheim, a well known printer
in the late nineteenth-century. Kronheim
was born in Madgeburg , Germany London Germany America London Berlin
Aunt Louisa’s Nursery Favourite lists
two publishers. The first, Frederick
Warne & Co. was a publisher based in London
The firm began
with Charles Scribner I and Issac Baker in January of 1846, and was called
Baker & Scribner (Princeton University Library, 2002). It was based out of the Brick Church Chapel
in New York City London in 1864, Scribner & Welford
established a presence in both New York and London New York City
There are two
places of publication listed; London and New York London New York
Title pages
originated from two very distinct needs.
First, as books were commercial products, it made sense to place all of
the advertising information in the front of the book so that it could be easily
seen by potential buyers (Frazier, 2003).
Second, because books were sent to sellers prior to being bound between
covers, it became necessary to protect the book, especially the first page,
from being dirtied (Frazier, 2003). At
first, a blank page was added to protect the page, but this obstructed the book’s
identity (Frazier, 2003). To identify
the book printers added a page with just the title of the book, called a
half-title. Eventually, the half-title
evolved into a full title page though the half-title is still seen in books
today (Frazier, 2003).
The title page of Aunt Louisa’s Nursery Favourite is
relatively simple, though it does highlight some of the developments of title
pages from their inception. In the fifteenth
century, English title pages were often simple but would include large
printer’s marks that took up the majority of the lower half of the page
(Pollard, 1891). Towards the middle of
the sixteenth century, the printer’s mark reduced in size, but it became
fashionable to fill the entire page with large woodcut borders, which often
only left a small area to include the page’s important information (Pollard,
1891). It was also around this time,
1520, where the year of publication began appearing in Roman numerals on the
bottom of the page (Pollard, 1891). This
did not last long since unique woodcut blocks could only be used for one
publication and, toward the end of the century, the borders reduced in size and
took the form of repeatable arabesques, architectural designs, or sculptural
figures (Pollard, 1891). During the seventeenth
century, title pages generally included only text, often of different sizes and
fonts (Pollard, 1891). The page was
usually crowed and often contained a “resume of the book” (Cole, 1971). The style lasted into the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, though the page eventually became less crowded (Cole,
1971).
This particular
title page fits with the style of its time.
There are several different fonts and font sizes and the page has a
significant amount of information. We
can also see that the fonts are generally larger on the top half of the page
and reduce in size towards the bottom.
Lastly, there is a publisher’s mark towards the bottom of the page as
well as the date of the publication.
There is no
rubrication used in this text. In fact,
there is no red ink used in the text block at all.
There is no
incipit or explicit. The absence of an
incipit or explicit is consistent with the time of the book’s publishing. Incipits and explicits served very important
purposes when manuscripts were being produced, however in later printed titles,
it seems that they fell out of disuse or, in the case of explicits, were
replaced by colophons (Cole, 1971).
This book includes a preface. Prefaces, or a statement written at the
beginning of a literary work which generally explains its scope or methodology, go very far back in the oral and
literary tradition (Dictionary.com, 2013).
“For example, in the Gilgamesh epic the first tablet includes the
author’s ‘introduction’ to the tale of Gilgamesh” (Zepetnek, 2009). In the case of Aunt Louisa’s Nursery Favourite, it is an editor’s preface. This particular preface is interesting as it
aligns itself with the other Aunt Louisa Toy Book series, though this
particular book is not considered to be part of the series itself. So it not only functions as an explanation of
the work, but an advertisement as well.
There
is no colophon for this text. The
importance of colophons gradually dwindled into the sixteenth century, as the
title page became widely used (Cole, 1971).
Though during the sixteenth century, it was common for a book to have
the title page and colophon (Cole, 1971).
There was a resurgence of colophon use in the nineteenth century as
private presses began to re-emphasize their fine printing and skilled craftsmanship,
but since this book was intended for mass production, it would have been
unlikely for it to have a colophon (Cole, 1971).
During the
nineteenth century, and still today, the size of the book is generally related
to the way in which it was printed.
Often multiple pages were printed onto one full sized sheet of paper and
then folded into signatures which could be sewn into a complete book (Allen,
1981). If two pages were printed on a
sheet, the size would be a folio, four pages would be a quarto, eight an octavo
and so on (Allen, 1981). This naming
convention is still used today though the style of printing has changed (Allen,
1981). In this case, the book was only
accessible online and there was no size listed so an exact size of the book is
unknown.
The book begins with an illustration and is followed by the
title page and preface. There is a
rudimentary table of contents included within the title page which lists each
nursery tale; however no page numbers are given. The main text block of the book is arranged
in four parts, one for each nursery tale.
Each story is arranged first with the half-title, then the first page of
text. The illustrations are interleaved within the text, though the stories
always begin and end with a text page. And
each illustration has a blank page preceding it. There are no visible watermarks on the pages
of this book.
William Morris, a well known nineteenth century printer, had
much to say about the way a book should be designed. His conception of the ideal book was one
where the “font ought to be delicate…the text should be properly set in the
page, allowing for a decent size margin on all sides…[and] ideally the book
should have hand made paper” (Fawcett-Tang & Mason, 2007). Had Aunt
Louisa’s Nursery Favourite been compared to Morris’ standard, it would have
most likely failed.
In this case, the page layout is dependent on the
story. In three of the stories, the text
pages have significant amounts of space between lines and there are small
margins. The pages are completely taken
up with text and the edges of the text are justified. Lily
Sweetbriar, a poem, is laid out differently from the rest of the text. In this section of the book, the margins are
very wide. The lines of text are very
close together and at the end of each four-line paragraph, there is a one-line
space. Additionally, every other line is
indented and the text edges are not justified.
The pagination of this book is quite interesting. The text pages of each story are numbered but
the numbering is based on each story as opposed the entire book. So each story begins with page one. Additionally, the illustration pages, the
interleaving blank pages, and half-titles are not accounted for. So, even if page two had an illustration or a
blank page directly following it, page three is considered to be the next text
page following page two.
There
is no printer’s device in this book, but there is a publisher’s device. It is a circular device for Frederick Warne
& Co. The main design is three
flowers that are in the shape of a stylized ‘W’. This is outlined by a thick circular margin
with the location of the publisher written within it. Finally, there is an outer circle which is
decorated with flowers as well.
In Aunt Louisa’s Nursery Favourite, we can
see all three examples of type. The
title page shows one line of gothic style type, “Printed in Colours by Kronheim,”
(pictured above) while the rest of the page is in roman type (pictured below). This is in line with the printing trend of the
time which favored the roman type which, since it became popular in the
sixteenth century, has been considered the ‘standard’ typeface of book
typography (“roman(typeface)”, n.d). On
the text leaves of the stories, the top margin has one line of text in italics
and the text block is, again, a roman type.
More specifically, it is most likely that the roman typeface is from the
Transitional family.
The Transitional
family of typeface is so named because it marks a period of transition from the
Old Style and Modern typefaces (Bevington, Craig, & Scala, 2012). It is characterized by a greater contrast in
the thick and thin strokes than the Old Style, the stress of the letters is
almost vertical, and the serifs are not has heavily bracketed as the Modern
typeface (Bevington, Craig, & Scala, 2012).
Baskerville type, a very popular Transitional typeface named for its
creator John Baskerville, is considered to be one of the most pleasant and
readable typefaces of this style (Bevington, Craig, & Scala, 2012). This book is considered to have a
Transitional typeface because the thick and thins are of a greater contrast
than the Old Style, but the serifs are not block or slab serifs as they would
be in the Modern class of typeface.
There are a total
of twenty-four color illustrations included in Aunt Louisa’s Nursery Favourite.
It is most likely that the color printing of the book was either the
Baxter process, which is described earlier in this blog, or chromolithography.
Chromolithography is a very time consuming process of printing where each
color is printed separately using different stones prepared by the lithographic
process (Nadeau, 2013). It was a very
expensive process at the time and was reserved for only the most expensive
books (Nadeau, 2013). More likely then
not, the Baxter process was used to prints these illustrations. Especially since according to his biography,
Kronheim mainly used the Baxter process until 1875 when his company switched to
steam litho machines. And as the book
was published in 1870, it would make sense that the Baxter process was used to
produce these prints.
Aside from the color illustrations, there are several printed decorations throughout the
text. The first form is a decorated
initial at the start of each story. The
initials are simple, two-line designs. There
is also an ornamental line between the large and the beginning of the text on
the first page of each story. 
Finally,
some of the stories end with a page where the text only fills half the
page. In order to fill the page, the
printer adds a decorative element. None
of the text decoration is printed in color.
Finally,
some of the stories end with a page where the text only fills half the
page. In order to fill the page, the
printer adds a decorative element. None
of the text decoration is printed in color.
There is no
illumination or painting in this text.
The book is
beautifully bound in dark blue leather with a gilt title and ornaments. On the front cover, there is an outside gold
border as well as a leather tooled inner border surrounding the title of the
book. The title is also gold leaf and is
extremely ornate. The back cover has the
same leather tooled border as the front, but does not have any gilding. The binder of this book is unknown.
The
front and back of the book each have one pastedown and one blank flyleaf that make
up the endleaves of the book.
Aunt Louisa’s Nursery Favourite is an
exemplary example of nineteenth century British children’s literature. The tales within are classic British nursery
tales, some which have lasted throughout the centuries (the author has a good
friend goes by Dick Whittington, the protagonist in the second tale). Because it brings together several of the
well known artists, publishers, and printing techniques of the time, a
significant amount can be learned from this text. Interestingly, this book is in near pristine
condition which suggests that it was probably seldom used. A fact that one the one hand is quite sad,
but on the other hand means that the book is wonderfully preserved in all of
its Victorian era glory.
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century. New
York : Syracuse
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Banerjee, J. (2007). What is children’s literature?
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Images of Aunt Louisa’s Nursery Favourite is courtesy of the
San Francisco Public
Library and the Internet
Archive. The book read be found here: http://archive.org/
details/auntlouisasnurse00vale
Images other than the book are courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
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