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Illustrated Classics in Facsimile

1984; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 12; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/chl.0.0177

1543-3374

Feenie Ziner,

Themes in Literature Analysis

Illustrated Classics in Facsimile Feenie Ziner (bio) Facsimile Editions of Early English Children's Books from the Osborne Collection, Toronto Public Library. Distributed in the United States by Merrimack Books, Salem, New Hampshire; in Great Britain by The Bodley Head, Covent Garden, London, 1982. 35 volumes, boxed. An international enterprise in which Canada and Japan played the leading roles has reproduced a treasury of early English illustrated children's books, selected from the great Osborne Collection of the Toronto Public Library. These thirty-five facsimiles come handsomely boxed and individually slipcased and are offered only as a set—a core collection. American families who would not hesitate to spend as much on home computers for the education of their young are not likely to come forward in any great numbers to purchase this collection at $695. Indeed, many public libraries will find it too heavy an investment. But it is interesting to note that two editions of these English books sold out in Japan before the negotiations for British or American distribution were even completed. The earliest and in some ways most absorbing of the rarities is Orbis Sensualium Pictus, by J. A. Comenius, whose name in his native Moravia was Komensky. First published in 1657 and in use for 200 years, Orbis, or The Visible World, served as a model for Diderot's Encyclopedia, influenced John Locke, and in our own time furnished inspiration to Piaget. Comenius was a religious radical, a member of the sect called the Unity of the Brethren. He believed that peace and prosperity depended upon universal understanding of the intrinsic order and unity of reality, and his book demonstrates that belief. Subtitled, "All the Chief Things That are in the World, and Men's Employments therein," Orbis is an illustrated nomenclature, in English and Latin. Through pictures and text it purports to include all the knowledge a person might need to lead a useful and well-informed life. Undaunted by abstraction or complexity, Comenius [End Page 167] devised pictures little over two inches square to show objects in relation to their use and in their contexts, thus anticipating the insights of Gestalt (context) psychology by several hundred years. The elements, heaven, metals, tame fowls, the seven ages of man, butchery, burial, the making of honey—the scope is breathtaking. Properly speaking this was not an English book but a book which was exceedingly popular in England. Translated from High Dutch by Charles Hoole in 1658 for use as a Latin text, it went through twelve English editions, the last of which is the one reproduced. It was still used as a school text in Prague, in 1845. Recently the University of Sydney, Australia, published a facsimile of Orbis Pictus, but until now it has only been available in this hemisphere in such collections as the Osborne, the Library of Congress, or the Pierpoint Morgan Library. It is interesting that the nomenclature continues to prosper as a literary form in our own day. Richard Scarry's books for children have adult counterparts in the proliferating books of lists, and in such widely read works as the Whole Earth Catalogues. Apparently the nomenclature offers the browser an enormous range of facts from which fancy may take wing, unimpeded by visible interference from an author. One hundred years intervene between Orbis Pictus and the second oldest book in the collection. Goody Two-Shoes, which first appeared in 1765, is usually identified as the first fictional narrative written expressly for children. Having seen only bowdlerized versions before the present edition, I understood for the first time why the book has had such lasting appeal. Goldsmith (for it probably was he) endowed his schoolmarm heroine with want and tragedy at the outset of his story and gave her an undefatigable spirit with which to overcome them. The little book, small enough to be carried about in a child's pocket, is enriched with spirited illustrations whose drama is not diminished by their minuscule size. The reprint is bound more soberly than the original, which was encased in colorful flowered Dutch paper boards. Actually, it is a facsimile of a facsimile, but it is based upon an edition published only...