Celebrating Childhood Picture Books and the stories that shape us

By Deborah Swift

  I think it is not possible to underestimate the influence of childhood reading on later life. For me much of my childhood reading was not just about the stories, but about the pictures that went with the stories. My mother gave me a wonderful thick book called The Golden Wonder Book which was full of myths, stories and classic tales. Everything from Dickens, To Aesop, to Jane Austen - even Shakespeare. Here is one of the pictures by Anne Anderson from Rumplestiltskin.

The stories and extracts were chosen and edited by John Crossland and JM Parrish, but I can find out nothing about them. I owe these people a huge debt as they introduced me to so much classic literature. What was more, they were packaged with glorious illustrations by artists such as Anne Anderson, Margaret Tulloch and Arthur Rackham. The corseted lady on the left is by Arthur Rackham, the dandy on the right by Tulloch. It is these visual images which have stayed with me  - a vague sense of a romantic golden age from times gone by. Often the myths are set in a "medieval" England that is more myth than real history, but these images have endured in my mind. Later in life these pictures persuaded me to go into costume design as a career and from there to writing historical fiction.

The stories themselves influenced me in so many ways. The idea of the prince who might rescue me from a tower, that we might wake from a hundred year slumber with a kiss, the fear of entering some other world and never being able to return, these all have a place in my psyche thanks to this picture book. There was a strong moral code in most of the stories, which seemed to say that good things only happened to 'good girls.'  And many of the stories play with the idea of transformation from ugliness to beauty.

The idea of the influence of story on our lives was one theme I wanted to explore in The Gilded Lily - how were the sisters Ella and Sadie made different by the stories that other people told about them? Perhaps your parents called you "the clever one" (thereby implying you weren't attractive), or perhaps they told you that you were not intelligent, but a hard worker. Ella is "the pretty one" and Sadie "the skilful one". How will they each fare when they leave their village and go to seek refuge in fashionable London?

Some of the fairy stories that are mentioned in The Gilded Lily are Cinderella - called The Ash Maid in the 17th century - and Snow White and Rose Red. Of course these are stories mostly celebrated by girls. What childhood stories made a deep impression on boys? In The Gilded Lily, my character Dennis enjoys penny chapbooks of the sensational crimes of the day - tales of hangings and skulduggery.

Are there books or stories from your childhood that have affected your life?

Thank you for helping me celebrate - The Gilded Lily is out TODAY! published by Pan Macmillan - paperback and e-book. US edition with extras for Reading Groups coming soon.
Look out for the Giveaway of The Gilded Lily here next week.

Watch the Trailer

Winter 1661

Timid Sadie Appleby has always lived in her small village. One night she is rudely awoken by her older and bolder sister, Ella, who has robbed her employer and is on the run. The girls flee their rural home of Westmorland to head for London, hoping to lose themselves in the teeming city. But the dead man's relatives are in hot pursuit, and soon a game of cat and mouse begins.

Ella becomes obsessed with the glitter and glamour of city life and sets her sights on flamboyant man-about-town, Jay Whitgift. But nothing is what it seems - not even Jay Whitgift.

Can Sadie survive a fugitive's life in the big city? But even more pressing, can she survive life with her older sister Ella? And when an altogether different danger threatens Ella's life, will Sadie run to the rescue, or turn the other cheek?

Set in London's atmospheric coffee houses, the rich mansions of Whitehall, and the pawnshops, slums and rookeries hidden from rich men's view, The Gilded Lily is about beauty and desire, about the stories we tell ourselves, and about how sisterhood can be both a burden and a saving grace.

"a beautifully-written blend of fast pace and atmospheric historical detail... the intense evocation of the period never falters" Gabrielle Kimm, author of His Last Duchess

All illustrations from Wikicommons or Grandma's Graphics

"Emma" Illustrated and Other News

by Debra Brown

Yes, Emma by Jane Austen was illustrated. I'm certain that you are blown away by the news. Just how do I know this deep dark secret?

One morning I was chatting by email with renowned author M.M. Bennetts complaining because she has the unfair advantage of living in the midst of English history while I am here, between five and six thousand miles from London, myself. I could not get maps.google.com to give me the exact mileage on that and had to get out my tape measure.

I also live a few centuries from my eras of chief interest, and that fact is continually rubbed in by modern architecture around me. The bridge over the river leading out of town was, however, built for horses and a carriage of which I am made acutely aware after every university ball game. Claim to fame: Craig Robinson, brother of First Lady Michelle Obama, is the basketball coach in my cozy and beautiful, modern little city.

While you can see an old wagon-train wagon some miles from here, and rusted pitchers that were once brought out west within it, there is no centuries-old castle, no museum protecting centuries-old parchments, no crumbling public records to research medieval England or Scotland or Wales. Well, of course, I have my computer.

After hitting Send on my complaint to M.M., the doorbell rang. Ugh. I almost did not answer it. I am, after all, an author and therefore do not get dressed- though I am grateful not to be strapped into a corset when I do.

Begrudgingly I put down the laptop and went to the door to send someone away. "I need your signature," declared the mailman. Hmmm. I signed a modern little gadget and accepted a box. Scotland? Who do I know in Scotland? Well, thanks to Twitter and FB I do know a few marvelous writers but not anyone who has my address.

I did feel better, though, since a package from Scotland had to be a good thing. It was shaped like a large book, but too light-weight. I shook it, of course, and something lightly clunked around (I'll never do that again) because it would take me at least a minute to get a knife and cut open the wrapper.

Inside the box was another box- a beautiful dusty-blue box with a silver metallic background for the words "A Day to Remember". Huh? Why do packages take so long to open? Does time slow down and hold you back? I opened the blue box and, to be sure, "it" was wrapped in tissue.

I lifted it in slow motion; I think it took forty-five minutes. I unfolded the tissue off the rather flat light-weight thing slowly, and at last there it was. Now my mind went into rapid-fire status: Oh yes! Some-weeks-ago-someone-emailed-me-via-the-blog-and-wanted-to-send-me-historical-newspapers! My jaw dropped. I fell into history!

Inside the tissue were three old papers. I mean old. The newest was from December 11,1896: The Daily Graphic, Enlarged to TWENTY PAGES. One Penny. But I needed new spectacles to read the miniscule print. That took a few weeks, and I still had to use a magnifying glass.The print is really small.

Hugh Thomson; Austenonly.com

Inside this paper I found the great news that Emma was being illustrated by Hugh Thomson. For your enlightenment it reads:

Mrs. Elton appears at church

One of the few books to which Mr. Hugh Thomson's name appears as illustrator this year is Jane Austen's 'Emma,' in Messrs. Macmillan's series of illustrated standard novels; for the rest he has left the field rather severely to his many imitators. But his hand has lost none of its cunning, and one has only to turn over the pages of this book to see how great is the distance still between the master and his followers. Mr. Austin Dobson gives the edition the additional gain of an excellent historical introduction from his pen, tracing the story of the novel in the day in January, 1816, when, like its predecessors 'Sense and Sensibility,' 'Pride and Prejudice,' and 'Mansfield Park,' it was anonymously put forth. Says Mr. Dobson: 'In writing to the Prince's librarian, Mr. J. S. Clarke, on the subject of the presentation copy which was to reach his Royal Highness three days before anyone else (it has been inscribed by invitation to that distinguished patron of Art and Letters, the Prince Regent), Miss Austen sets forth her own ideas of the new book-the last, as a matter of fact, which she was destined to behold in type. 'My greatest anxiety at present is that this fourth work should not disgrace what was good in the others. But on this point I will do myself the justice to declare that, whatever be my wishes for its success, I am strongly haunted with the idea that to those readers who have preferred "Pride and Prejudice" it will appear inferior in wit, and to those who have preferred "Mansfield Park," inferior in good sense.'" When it appeared the Quarterly aptly enough said that the merits of the author consisted in the neatness and point of the narrative and the quiet comedy of the dialogue, but the qualities of "Emma" are undoubtedly qualities which grow with acquaintance. Qualified approval may be the first verdict, later the qualifications have a tendency to withdraw from insistence. "I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like," said Jane Austen herself at the outset, but despite thus handicapping herself, so skilfully and subtly is the character of Emma Woodhouse developed that the reader is insinuatingly drawn into loving her. "Emma" shows to perfection the writer's methods, her genius, and her limitations. The quotation from a letter by Charlotte Bronte with which Mr. Dobson concludes is, as he says, unjust to Miss Austen, but it is most interesting as setting forth the view of many. The authoress of "Jane Eyre" thought Miss Austen bloodless and lacking fire: so she is to a great extent, but a catholic taste can appreciate many manners, while they are none of them superficial, and superficial, pace Charlotte Bronte, is just what Miss Austen is not. Our illustration shows the incident described by Emma, when explaining to her father how she had always intended Mr. Weston to marry Miss Taylor. "Ever since the day (about four years ago) that Miss Taylor and I met with him in Broadway Lane, when, because it began to mizzle, he dashed away with so much gallantry and borrowed two umbrellas for us from Farmer Mitchell's, I made up my mind on the subject. I planned the match from that hour." ("Emma," by Jane Austen, Illustrated by Hugh Thomson. Macmillan and Co.)

Well, that is the incredible news. 116 years ago. Almost. Wow. The news article comes complete with an illustration labeled "Two Umbrellas for Us." By the famous Mr. Thomson. (See more about him HERE.)

This newspaper is smooth, though yellowing. No problem. It is smooth because it is made of new-fangled paper made from wood. The other two papers are both from 1819, thus made of the more common and textured rag paper. The London Times. Price, 7d. Stamped, even. The front and back are want ads, birth, marriage and death announcements and the price of stocks. (I say, buy!) Inside there are lovely articles. Not a picture to be found.

I will share more earth-shaking news with you from these great newspapers soon, abandoning my series on the Monarchy for a little longer. But let me tell you where you, too, can obtain such fascinating bits of history. They are sold HERE at Historic Newspapers packaged beautifully as gifts for special occasions, and they come from all over the world. Imagine the amazing things you can read about first-hand, hot off the press. A history teaching resource pack is also available.

Many thanks to Thomas Walker of Historical Newspapers for the gift newspapers, some almost two hundred years old, I received.

Debra Brown is the author of The Companion of Lady Holmeshire- now undergoing revision and available again by August 1, 2012.