When were children's books born and how have they developed? It is truly a luxurious pleasure to trace the course by reading books which actually mark each period of the development of this genre. Illustrations in those books clearly show the period in which they were drawn. We can also see how the vocabulary used in their stories has been changing. The Winnington-Ingram Collection gives us this luxurious experience.

To outline the Collection briefly, it consists of about 1,560 books and is formally called "The Winnington-Ingram Collection of Children’s Books." The Reverend Edward Henry Winnington-Ingram⁽ⁱ⁾, a distinguished English clergyman, began to collect children’s books which corresponded to the moral and religious values of the Victorian Age, and after his death, the Collection was inherited by his daughter Constance.

The content of the Collection is most impressive. It shows the progress of English children’s literature in the 18th century, with publications by John Newbery⁽ⁱⁱ⁾, a representative publisher of the time, to the late 19th century after the Grimms’⁽ⁱⁱⁱ⁾ and Andersen’^(iv)s fairy tales, which appeared in the early 19th century, delighted children and powerfully advanced children’s literature.

In the mid-19th century, stories for young people written by Charlotte M. Yonge^(v) influenced many girls’ stories including those by Louisa M. Alcott^(vi). The latter half of the century saw the popularity of stories of daily life stemming from Yonge's work, but this period was characterized, above all, by the flourishing of fantasy fiction for children and adventure stories for boys, represented respectively by Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll^(vii) and by Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson^(viii).

One of the fascinations of the Collection lies in our encounter with forgotten children’s books. They are, now, less represented, being behind the best-known books for boys and girls, but some of them are worthy of reading, and very valuable as research materials.

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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, At the Back of the North Wind by George MacDonald^(ix), and The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley^(x) are well-known masterpieces of fantasy literature in 19th century England, and the continuous publishing of this kind of books apparently took the place of the literary fairy tale, and was a factor in the decline of that genre. But, even now, Japanese readers are enjoying The Happy Prince and other tales of Oscar Wilde^(xi) as an example of fairy tales written in 19th century England.

This Collection clearly tells us that fairy tales were not declining in the least. Charlotte Maria Tucker, a writer of this period, wrote evangelical novels for children under the grand pseudonym of A. L. O. E.^(xii) (A Lady of England). One of her works, Fairy Know-a-Bit (VZ1-18), is included in the Collection.

Fairy Know-a-Bit (VZ1-18)

This fairy tale begins with a scene where Fhilibert, son of a rich family, found a fairy sitting on a large book while loitering over a meal ignoring other people’s annoyance. This fairy has the objective of conveying to the boy useful knowledge, and ultimately, ethics and human morality. The fairy introduces himself at the beginning as follows:

"My name is Know-a-bit," continued the stranger; "I was once a fairy, living under the greenwood tree, dancing my rounds on the soft green turf, to the light of the glow-worm's lamp, and the sound of the nightingale's song. Then I drank honey-dew from the blossoms, and decked myself out in the petals of flowers, or spoils from the butterfly's wing. But times have changed – and so have I. A railway now runs right through the valley which was our favorite haunt – there are engine lights instead of the glow-worm's, and the scream of the whistle drowns the song of the bird! Education is now all the fashion, and fairies, like bigger people, are sent to learn lessons at school. As for me, I was the first of my race, to give up a rural life. For more than four hundred years, ever since printing was invented, I have taken to books; and I now make my home within the leaves of this volume,"

Living in a book, this ex-fairy naturally has a rich knowledge from which he provides one item after another for the boy who needs to learn a lot. Thus this book may be called an educational book in the form of a fairy tale.

From only the part of the fairy's self-introduction, we can see the following aspects:

1.    A literary fairy tale reflects clearly the epoch in which it was produced.

As for the first statement, some might wonder whether only one work is sufficient to make a judgment like this, but children’s literature, on the whole, evidently shows that it has been reflecting quite directly each epoch up to the present.

More interesting from the historic aspect of the literature is the second statement. Alice, a nonsense story, has been pleasing many audiences, and is regarded as a watershed in literary history. After Alice, books for boys and girls became obviously unconstrained and pleasurable, free from didacticism.

Fairy Know-a-Bit tells us that the tendency toward moralism and excessive emphasis on knowledge was still alive even after the appearance of Alice, and this naturally led to the question whether Carroll’s masterpiece itself was didactic or not.

In the latter part of 19th century, there were as many literary fairy tales as fantasy fiction. Authors such as Juliana Horatia Ewing^(xiii), Mrs. Molesworth^(xiv), Dinah Maria Mulock^(xv), Mary de Morgan^(xvi), Oscar Wilde, to name them at random, wrote and published literary fairy tales and fantasy fiction and they are still well read. Most of them are interesting and easy-to-read stories which express insight into humanity, with excellent writing skill, but toning down the didactic attitude, unlike the works of A.L.O.E.

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In 1904, The Pedlar's Pack written by Mrs. Alfred Baldwin^(xvii) was published (the Collection's edition is not an original copy, and the Osborne Collection does not have an original edition either). This book contains nine fairy tales. Their titles are rather interesting, and you may take the fancy to read such a tale as "The child that dropped from the clouds." "Conrad of the Red Town" may be the one which has the most characteristic atmosphere of a traditional fairy tale.

 Conrad the boy in the Red Town has curly hair called "fairy curls" and he was told by an old lady, Ulrika, to be careful about being whisked away by fairies. But young Conrad did not care and went to see the fairy ring which was where the fairies danced on a bright moonlight night. In traditional fairy tales, whenever fairies dance in a fairy ring, silver moonlight is shining, the scent of wild brier fills the air and a nightingale is singing. This tale also depicts that kind of scene in a simple and beautiful manner.

Conrad fell under the spell of that scene and as he went to see it every moonlight night he became gradually weaker. At last, he was discovered by the fairies, who made a knot in his hair. This knot could never be opened even with a knife or scissors. One day, when Fairy King Oberon and Fairy Queen Titania passed through the town with Puss in Boots, Dick Whittington, Cinderella, and Little Red Riding Hood, Conrad joined in the procession and was never seen again.

To have the heroes and heroines of traditional literature walking in procession somewhat destroys the mystery, but the motif of this story is similar to "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" and reminds us of a poem of John Keats, and also points to the heathenism that caught on in England at the end of the 19th century. The Pedlar’s Pack is also a mirror reflecting the epoch.

And now, the first ten years of the 20th century are the years of James Barrie, Kenneth Grahame^(xix) and Rudyard Kipling^(xx). In England, people were enjoying the opulent and peaceful Belle Epoque basking in the afterglow of the Victorian Age.

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  One of the volumes of Mrs Strang's Annual for Girls <VZ1-814> (c.1910) which gives off an aura of this age is included in this Collection. This is a very amusing book. As it is an annual, it has all kinds of contents. You can enjoy interesting life stories and pleasing fiction. "On taming wild birds" and "Patty, a real golfer," are "how-to" stories. The variety is the great value of this book. From the viewpoint of children's literature, I was interested in two stories: "My introduction to motor cycling" and "Our canoe expedition."

After reading these two stories, I came to Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. The Collection has the edition of 1954. In this book, written by Grahame in 1908, cars appear and boating is shown. From these two books, we can see that cars and motorcycles had spread in everyday life although they were still a little uncommon in those days. But Grahame's world of the riverside was only for men, so maybe he was prejudiced against women.

In England, recreational boating started when rivers were opened to the public after their role in mass transportation was finished by the completion of the rail system. Comparing "Our canoe expedition" and The Wind in the Willows, we can see the change of period clearly.

As a method to introduce the Winnington-Ingram Collection, I mentioned a few books whose motifs seem rather out of date. This only emphasizes the richness of the Collection. Probably because the founder of the Collection was a Church of England clegyman, there is a sort of bias in that books such as those written by Oscar Wilde or James Barrie are not included in the Collection. But almost all the major authors of children's literature, mainly in England, from the 18th century to the early 20th century, such as Lewis Carroll, Mrs. Ewing who excelled at both fairy tales and realism, picture book author Kate Greenaway^(xxi) and adventure story author G. A. Henty^(xii) are included, which makes this Collection fascinating not only for research but also for reading. Furthermore, literary works which had fulfilled their role and preserve each epoch are found in every category. Call the classic works major, and works which could not get over the wall of age, minor.

I believe it is by researching both major and minor works that the history of children's literature will be synthesized to be seen from various angles.

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