This exhibition features a selection of classic, finely illustrated juvenile books published in the mid-to late nineteenth century, an era that witnessed dramatic growth in Europe in the literary and pictorial development of fairy lore and fantasy, as well as the introduction of the modern children's picture book. Significant innovations in illustration, wood engraving, color block printing and eventually chromolithography, occurring primarily in Great Britain, increasingly gave visual form to the folk-based, oral traditions of the fairy tale and nursery rhyme.

"Once Upon a Time" is dedicated to the memory of Herbert H. Hosmer (1913-1995), a collector of children's books and juvenilia who was generous and kind in sharing his knowledge and enthusiasm with me over the sixteen years of our friendship. Volumes on display are on loan from private collections. Those lending books are thanked for their participation.

Origins of the Fairy Tale

This essay concentrates on early sources and manifestations of the fairy tale, while "Once Upon a Time" also reflects on somewhat later developments in the children's picture book. Many of the books discussed below appear in the exhibition; earlier volumes, published before 1850, are cited to lend context but are not included in the display.

The didactic moralism characteristic of children's literature did not begin to yield to the kind of fantasy that we have come to identify with children's books until the early to mid-nineteenth century. Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland (1865), illustrated by John Tenniel, is perhaps the best-known publication that marks this modern shift. The chief characteristics of the fairy tale-what sets it apart from other stories-are its fantastic settings, marvels, magic spells and strange transmogrifications. Setting aside disbelief, the stories present a world in which the difficulties of ordinary life are commonly outwitted by extraordinary means and powers, often with the support of fairies, dwarfs, elves and giants.

The roots of the fairy tale may be traced back to the seventeenth century and even earlier. The thousand and one nights, or Arabian Nights, based upon ancient Middle Eastern oral tradition, strongly influenced the European fairy tale. The provenance of these stories, originally written in Arabic, can be traced back to Persia and perhaps India, where many of the stories take place. The first European edition is a French translation by Abbé Antoine Galland, published 1704-1717. The trope of the princess saving herself by telling stories, upon which The thousand and one nights is based, bears a long tradition in children's literature.

The earliest published collections of peasant fairy stories, important precursors of the books presented in this exhibition, first appeared in Italy, France, Germany and Denmark beginning in the late sixteenth century. The first was transcribed in Italy in Neapolitan dialect by Giambattista Basile (c.1575-1632). There is some evidence that the Italians knew the stories of The thousand and one nights, and Basile's fairy tales demonstrate striking narrative affinities. Published posthumously in 1637, Lo cunto de li cunti (The Pentamerone, or The Story of Stories) is based upon traditional folk tales women told their children. More than a straight transcription, The Pentamerone, which first appeared in English in 1848, is typical in its expression of the Baroque age: action is lively, dramatic, bloody and full of complicated intrigue and wit. Charles Perrault's (1628-1703) Histores ou contes du temps passé (Tales of Long Ago), published in 1697, is a signal work, for Perrault, a member of the French Academy, is perhaps the first writer of consequence to recognize that the fairy tale belonged to the world of children. Perrault's Tales included Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, Blue Beard and Puss-in-Boots. Both Basile and Perrault sought curatives for modern life in the fairy lore of the people; next to beauty and wealth, the most important attributes of their protagonists are courage and an understanding of humanity. Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm (1785-1863) and Wilhelm Carl Grimm (1786-1859), professors of linguistics studies first at Gottingen and later at Berlin University, collected stories of country folk and gathered literary sources for their two-volume Kinder und Haüsmarchen (1812-15), popularly known as Grimm's Fairy Tales. While in the Grimms' earlier stories the world is presented as the province of princes, princesses and kings, in their later tales-reflecting an age of revolution-the peasant boy in Hans in Luck, for example, triumphs by virtue of his modesty of means, a Romantic concept.

Hans Christian Andersen's (1805-1875) legendary fairy tales were first published in English in 1846 as Wonderful Stories for Children. Born of difficult circumstances to a poor cobbler in Odense, Denmark, in 1805, Andersen fashioned some of his most memorable stories from his own childhood experiences. Known for stories such as the semi-autobiographical The Ugly Duckling and The Emperor's New Clothes, The Snow Queen and the Princess and the Pea, among many others, Andersen's spare tales are laced with a northern irony and psychological subtlety. Favoring fantastic, poetic associations with nature and the cosmos, Andersen's living things animate and do good deeds in the spirit of justice, while at the same time protagonists suffer pain and, at times, tragic endings. Included in this exhibition is Andersen's Tales for Children, an American edition of an early illustrated volume published in London in 1861.

The London publisher and book producer Joseph Cundall led the way in the 1840s in introducing collections of fairy stories, which were becoming increasingly commonplace. Many of Cundall's books were well-designed and well-illustrated by some of the finest illustrators, engravers and printers of the period. Cundall's publications, though expensive in their own day, elevated the production quality of children's books and helped to popularize the fairy tale. An influential landmark series of the period, begun in 1843, was Sir Henry Cole's The Home Treasury of Books, published by Cundall under the pseudonym of "Felix Summerly." An offshoot of this series is the later A Treasury of Pleasure Books for Young and Old (1851), illustrated with animated, hand-colored wood engravings by Edward Wehnert and Harrison Weir. Demonstrating his own role in disseminating sought-after, modern illustrated collections of fairy tales, Cundall writes in the preface to his children: "This year I have taken three tales from Grimm's German Popular Stories-namely, 'Hans in Luck,' 'Peter the Goatherd,' and 'The Charmed Fawn'; one from the French by Perrault, 'Puss in Boots'; one from the Danish, by Andersen, 'The Ugly Little Duck'; and only one from the English tradition, 'Robin Hood.'"

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