The Victorian Press and the Fairy Tale

267 Pages·2008·2.959 MB·English

by  Caroline Sumpter (auth.)

The Victorian Press and the
Fairy Tale
Caroline Sumpter
Palgrave Studies in Nineteenth-Century Writing and Culture
General Editor: Joseph Bristow, Professor of English, UCLA
Editorial Advisory Board: Hilary Fraser, Birkbeck College, University of London;
Josephine McDonagh, Linacre College, University of Oxford; Yopie Prins, University
of Michigan; Lindsay Smith, University of Sussex; Margaret D. Stetz, University of
Delaware; Jenny Bourne Taylor, University of Sussex
Palgrave Studies in Nineteenth-Century Writing and Culture is a new monograph series
that aims to represent the most innovative research on literary works that were
produced in the English-speaking world from the time of the Napoleonic Wars to the
fin de siècle. Attentive to the historical continuities between ‘Romantic’ and
‘Victorian’, the series will feature studies that help scholarship to reassess the meaning
of these terms during a century marked by diverse cultural, literary, and political
movements. The main aim of the series is to look at the increasing influence of types
of historicism on our understanding of literary forms and genres. It reflects the shift
from critical theory to cultural history that has affected not only the period
1800–1900, but also every field within the discipline of English literature. All titles in
the series seek to offer fresh critical perspectives and challenging readings of both
canonical and non-canonical writings of this era.
Titles include:
Laurel Brake and Julie F. Codell (editors)
ENCOUNTERS IN THE VICTORIAN PRESS
Editors, Authors, Readers
Colette Colligan
THE TRAFFIC IN OBSCENITY FROM BYRON TO BEARDSLEY
Sexuality and Exoticism in Nineteenth-Century Print Culture
Dennis Denisoff
SEXUAL VISUALITY FROM LITERATURE TO FILM, 1850–1950
Laura E. Franey
VICTORIAN TRAVEL WRITING AND IMPERIAL VIOLENCE
Lawrence Frank
VICTORIAN DETECTIVE FICTION AND THE NATURE OF EVIDENCE
The Scientific Investigations of Poe, Dickens and Doyle
Jarlath Killeen
THE FAITHS OF OSCAR WILDE
Catholicism, Folklore and Ireland
Stephanie Kuduk Weiner
REPUBLICAN POLITICS AND ENGLISH POETRY, 1789–1874
Kirsten MacLeod
FICTIONS OF BRITISH DECADENCE
High Art, Popular Writing and the Fin de Siècle
Diana Maltz
BRITISH AESTHETICISM AND THE URBAN WORKING CLASSES, 1870–1900
Catherine Maxwell and Patricia Pulham (editors)
VERNON LEE
Decadence, Ethics, Aesthetics
David Payne
THE REENCHANTMENT OF NINETEENTH-CENTURY FICTION
Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot and Serialization
Julia Reid
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, SCIENCE, AND THE FIN DE SIÈCLE
Anne Stiles (editor)
NEUROLOGY AND LITERATURE, 1860–1920
Caroline Sumpter
THE VICTORIAN PRESS AND THE FAIRY TALE
Ana Parejo Vadillo
WOMEN POETS AND URBAN AESTHETICISM
Passengers of Modernity
Phyllis Weliver
THE MUSICAL CROWD IN ENGLISH FICTION, 1840–1910
Class, Culture and Nation
Palgrave Studies in Nineteenth-CenturyWriting and Culture
Series Standing Order ISBN 978-0-333-97700-2 (hardback)
(outside North America only)
You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please
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Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire
RG21 6XS, England
The Victorian Press and the
Fairy Tale
Caroline Sumpter
Lecturer in English, Queen’s University, Belfast
© Caroline Sumpter 2008
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2008 978-0-230-51805-6
All rights reserved.No reproduction,copy or transmission of this
publication may be made without written permission.
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with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright,
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Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be
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in accordance with the Copyright,Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2008 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England,company number 785998,of Houndmills,Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC,
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ISBN 978-1-349-35575-4 ISBN 978-0-230-22764-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230227644
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully
managed and sustained forest sources.Logging,pulping and manufacturing
processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the
country of origin.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sumpter,Caroline.
The Victorian press and the fairy tale / Caroline Sumpter.
p.cm.—(Palgrave studies in nineteenth-century writing and culture)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. English fiction—19th century—History and criticism.2. Fairy tales in literature.
3. English periodicals—History—18th century.4. English periodicals—History—
19th century.5. English fiction—18th century—History and criticism.6. Literature
and folklore—England—History—18th century.7. Literature and folklore—
England—History—19th century.8. Fairy tales—Great Britain—History and
criticism.9. Fairy tales—Adaptations—History and criticism. I. Title.
PR878.F27S86 2008
823'.809—dc22 2008016148
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08
For my parents, John and Frances Ann
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Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgements xi
Introduction 1
1 Serialising Scheherazade: An Alternative History
of the Fairy Tale 11
Antiquarianism, Romanticism, nationalism: The chapbook
and the press 15
Originals and counterfeits: Inventing the ‘classic’ fairy tale 25
2 Myths of Origin: Folktale Scholarship and Fictional
Invention in Magazines for Children 34
‘Highmindedness and refinement’ versus ‘cheap and nasty
literature’: Defining the middle-class juvenile monthly 35
The Romantic child and recapitulation 39
Max Müller, the Indo-European thesis and juvenile
periodical fantasy 42
‘Savage survivals’ and the fairy tale 49
‘Life is the most beautiful fairy tale’: Class and gender fantasies 52
Readers write back: Fairy tales and storytelling communities
in Aunt Judy’s Magazine 62
3 Science and Superstition, Realism and Romance:
Fairy Tale and Fantasy in the Adult Shilling Monthly 67
The ‘magic wand of language’: Comparative mythology,
Celticism and savagery 68
Servants, sweeps and Cinderellas: Darwinian fairy tales 75
Sleeping beauty and the prince’s progress: ‘The woman question’ 82
4 ‘I wonder were the fairies Socialists?’: The Politics
of the Fairy Tale in the 1890s Labour Press 88
‘A precarious existence’: Strategies for survival in the
1890s socialist press 89
The ideological contexts of reading 92
Cinderella and socialism 101
Evolutionary frameworks: Childhood, the fairy tale and
rural utopianism 105
Making socialists 113
New tales from old: Context and meaning 115
vii
viii Contents
‘Joining the crusade against the giants’: Keir Hardie,
child readers and interactive fairy tales 118
5 ‘All art is at once surface and symbol’: Fairy Tales 131
and fin-de-siècle Little Magazines
‘Too highbrow to be popular’: Little magazines, elitism
and commerce 132
Beauty and use: Arts and Crafts and the fairy tale 135
Innocents and epicures: Decadence, Symbolism and the child 140
Alternative masculinities: The fairy tale and coded gay discourse 156
Conclusion: Myth in the Marketplace 175
Abbreviations Used in Notes 179
Notes 180
Bibliography 220
Index 239
Illustrations
2.1 A. W. Bayes, ‘The Hillman and the Housewife’,
Aunt Judy’s Magazine, 1870. © The British Library Board.
All Rights Reserved. PP59922i 56
2.2 George Cruikshank, ‘Timothy’s Shoes’,
Aunt Judy’s Magazine, 1871. © The British Library Board.
All Rights Reserved. PP59922i 58
2.3 Cover illustration, Chatterbox,1880. © The British Library
Board. All Rights Reserved. PP5992g 59
2.4 Randolph Caldecott, cover illustration,
Aunt Judy’s Magazine, 1882. © The British Library Board.
All Rights Reserved. PP59922i 60
4.1 Jordie, ‘An Empty Feast’, Labour Leader, 18 May 1895.
© The British Library Board. All Rights Reserved. NPL LON 420 97
4.2 Jordie, ‘Little Red Riding Hood’,Labour Leader, 10 Aug. 1895.
© The British Library Board. All Rights Reserved. NPL LON 420 99
4.3 Alexis, ‘Sleeping Beauty’, Labour Leader, 25 Dec. 1897.
© The British Library Board. All Rights Reserved. NPL LON 1000 128
5.1 Sidney Meteyard, ‘Rapunzel’, Quest, 1896. Used by
permission of the University of London Library 138
5.2 [John] Byam [Liston] Shaw, ‘Beauty and the Beast’, Dome,
1898. Used by permission of the University of London Library 159
5.3 Laurence Housman, illustration to Jane Barlow,
The End of Elfin-Town, 1894. © The British Library Board.
All Rights Reserved. KTC.35.a.4. Used by permission of
the Random House Group Ltd. 165
5.4 Laurence Housman, ‘The Reflected Faun’, Yellow Book, 1894.
Used by permission of the University of London Library
and the Random House Group Ltd. 168
5.5 Laurence Housman, ‘Blind Love’, Pageant, 1897.
Used by permission of the University of London Library
and the Random House Group Ltd. 173
ix