Classics and Commercial
Treasure Island. By Robert Louis Stevenson. (Nonesuch Press, 30s.) At the Back of the North Wind. By George
Wilder. (Penguin : Puffin Books, 3s.)
THE more immediately impressive of these re- prints, simply from the point of view of appearance, are the four Nonesuch Cygnets. These are the first of a new series of expensive republications of children's classics from the Bodley Head. Each of them costs 30s. or more, and each is a distinguished piece of book- production, printed on substantial paper with excellent binding. It's clear that books of this sort are not suitable for all purposes, and you many feel that, a child doesn't want the respon- sibility of a book which so obviously mustn't have crumbs in its gutter. Colour and smell and feel and general amiability can be part of the attraction of a book, and on this reckoning a Cygnet may be a little daunting. However, if you want to have, say, an Alice which is going to be in the family for years, this is it. The selection from Andrew Lang's fairy books seems to me to be most suited by this presentation, providing a book with a large number of tales which a grown-up can read out of or a child can search about in for itself. As the editor, Kathleen Lines, points out, the quality of the storytelling is uneven, but many of the stories arc intrinsically fascinating and told in a lively manner.
Anything in the nature of liveliness is singu- larly lacking from the curiosity of this group, At the Back of the North Wind, by George Macdonald, originally published in 1875. It tells the story of a little boy called Diamond. He is a stableman's son, and at night he is taken from his bed above the stable by the North Wind in the form of a beautiful woman, and accompanies her on her night's employments.
The narrative excitement is small, and the know- ing sentimental moralising of the conversations makes it clear that the book came into being very much for the gratification of the author. I suppose it may also once have gratified parents, though I can't imagine any parents nowadays who would want the burden of reading this to their children.
Since the standard of Bodley Head design and illustration is so consistently high, it may per- haps seem churlish to criticise the drawings in these books. They are, in fact, very good in themselves: but those in Treasure Island don't
reflect much of the drama of the book, and I
find that Margery Gill, whose talent is to make everything seem homely, real and present, is miscast for the Andrew Lang. Her pigeons are excellent pigeons, but they couldn't turn into girls.
Expensive to cheap. Little House in the Big Woods is an account of the everyday life of two little girls who live with their parents in a log house in the forests of nineteenth-century America. The tone of this book is very attrac- tive, and in very simple language it manages to give many of the details of their domestic year, and includes careful instructions for mak- ing smoked bear-meat, yellow butter and bullets.
The Weirdstone of Brisingamen is a Puflin for rather older children. It takes place in Cheshire, although, apart from the scenery, it has little enough to do with real life. The children, Colin and Susan, are merely identifi- cation figures with nominal reactions. This is just as well, because Cheshire is running with troll- life, and you can't take a step without flushing a wizard or a svart or a four-foot-tall eyeless bull-terrier. The interest of the book is all in the proliferated invention, and on this score it should have no difficulty in holding the attention.
Two books now republished in Penguin Books' new series for older children, Peacock Books, illustrate rather than quite overcome the diffi- culties in such a venture. It's valuable to have attention drawn to those books which conveni- ently bridge the gap between childhood and adult reading. Roy Fuller's With My Little Eye only differs from a detective story in that the hero is an adolescent, and a pretty conventional public-school boy at, that., I can't help thinking that if you can read this you can read Simenon, with a good deal more profit and interest. Simi- larly, Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle is an advance only in the sense that it is about emo- tion and relationships. Set in the Thirties, it describes in the words of a seventeen-year-old girl her 'scatty' family starving in a castle in Suffolk, and what happens. when- the landlords turn out to be two interesting young American brothers. It's written in rubbish of an accomp- lished kind, and it will be apparent that it bridges the gap to the woman's serial. It should be (and no doubt is already) a great success with girls of about fourteen: at any rate until they find out about Bonjour Tristesse.
The last of these books is not a reprint but retelling of twelve of the legends about the knights who followed Prince Vladimir of Kiev. Vladimir himself comes from history, but folk- memory has given him the Tartars to fight instead of the Slays, and decorated the stories with some fascinating detail. CI have been ex- pecting you,' says one of the villains. 'An owl in a bright-green shawl 'brought, me the story.') These stories are clearly told and exciting, ,and there are some suitably hair-raising illustiations from Charles Keeping.
QUENTIN BLAKE
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