Discover Special Collections: A Look at Dolls in Books at the Osborne Collection
Our latest Discover Special Collections drop-in at the Osborne Collection of Early Children's Books featured dolls in early and vintage children’s books.
Two hundred years ago, British children’s stories featuring dolls had an educational theme. In these stories, a little owner would carefully teach her doll manners and deportment. Such books offered different levels of learning: the children reading the story absorbed what the doll was being taught, and also how to care for young charges. Children in the story can be careful or inattentive “parents”: some learn to take splendid care of their dolls, while others are easily distracted, and the poor dolls come to grief. These were valuable early lessons in child care.
Mallès de Beaulieu, The Well-Bred Doll: Intended for the Instruction and Amusement of Children. 3rd. ed. London: Charles H. Law, 1848.
The Victorian Era was known for its sentimental stories. The “Lost Doll” was a popular motif, used in a poem by Charles Kingsley, author of The Water-Babies (1863), shown below with an illustration by M. Dibdin Spooner from The Golden Staircase anthology, edited by L. Chisholm and published in London by E.C. and T.C. Jack (1906):
The Little Doll
Charles Kingsley
I once had a sweet little doll, dears,
The prettiest doll in the world;
Her cheeks were so red and so white; dears, And her hair was so charmingly curled.
But I lost my poor little doll, dears,
As I played in the heath one day;
And I cried for her more than a week, dears; But I never could find where she lay.
I found my poor little doll, dears,
As I played in the heath one day:
Folks say she is terrible changed, dears, For her paint is all washed away, And her arm trodden off by the cows, dears, And her hair not the least bit curled: Yet for old sakes' sake she is still, dears,
The prettiest doll in the world.
Another example is Miss Pardoe’s Lady Arabella, or, The Adventures of a Doll, illustrated by George Cruikshank, published in London by Kerby and Sons (1856), in which a once-beautiful, once-dignified doll recounts her sad decline in fortune, from a cherished, elegantly dressed plaything of a spoiled girl (“Miss Tantrum”), to a cast-off, broken wreck on a dust heap.
Arguably one of the most influential doll stories, and one that ushered in a host of anthropomorphic dolls-coming-alive tales, Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio (1883) tells of a talking puppet who makes endless mistakes and blunders, until he finally takes responsibility for his own actions, and no longer allows himself to be controlled by others. Pinocchio’s reward is to become a real boy.
This theme was later explored by Margery Bianco in The Velveteen Rabbit (1922), in which a worn toy becomes “real” because he was so well loved. One popular variation is the child finding his or her doll is not only alive, but it is exasperated or angry at its ill-treatment, as in Edith Nesbit’s The Revolt of the Toys, shown below in a 1902 edition published in London by Ernest Nister. In this story, Kitty’s maltreated toys, led by her favourite but much-abused doll, disappear, and only return when Kitty writes them a “Magner Charter” promising never to “brake” toys, pull out their “hares” or make them play “cirkusses” [sic] again.
The turn of the century, with its advances in print technology and illustration techniques, ushered in a lively array of colourful picture books. Henry Mayer’s The Adventures of a Japanese Doll, published in London by Grant Richards (1901) tells of the doll Ting-A-Ling. A dog punished for biting her takes his revenge by sending Ting-A-Ling sky-high, tied to a balloon, but she is rescued by a friendly stork, and escorted around the world. Ting-A-Ling visits the Sphinx in Egypt, the Alps, deserts, and the North Pole, among other scenic locations.
A popular form of jointed wooden dolls, called “Dutch” dolls, features in many stories. Best known among these are Kathleen Ainslie’s adventure tales of Catharine Susan and her companion Maria, who celebrate holidays and adore parties, but also work at odd jobs to “make an honest penny” and agitate for “votes for women” in a series of small, bright, paperbound books, published from the very early 1900s.
Other famous doll stories include The Golliwog books (1895 and on) by Florence and Bertha Upton; Anne Parrish’s Floating Island (1930), a Robinsonnade about a family of dolls shipwrecked on a desert island; Johnny Gruelle’s Raggedy Ann books, (1918 and on) and a series of fine doll stories by Rumer Godden: The Doll’s House (1947), Impunity Jane (1955), The Fairy Doll (1956), The Story of Holly and Ivy, (1958), Candy Floss (1960), and Miss Happiness and Miss Flower (1961) and Little Plum (1963).
Some of the most famous children’s authors of the twentieth century specialized in doll stories. British writer Enid Blyton’s Noddy became a publishing phenomenon of the 1950s (and led to the use of the iconic elf images for Kellogg Cereal’s Snap, Crackle and Pop).
Dare Wright’s The Lonely Doll (1957) and its sequels feature photographic illustrations of a doll posed with Teddy Bears. Edith is frequently in trouble, but all generally ends well. These stories spark some controversy today because in one illustration, Edith is being spanked by Mr. Bear.
On the whole, though, contemporary doll books are cheerful and bright. This brief look at early doll stories was followed by modern favourites: Ainslie Manson’s Just Like New (1995), Edward Ardizzone’s The Little Girl and the Tiny Doll (1966) and many others.
We finished off with a look at the famous Doll House: created by Toronto antiquarian bookseller Yvonne Knight, the dollhouse was donated to Osborne by her family, where it continues to delight visitors.
Detail: The Sitting Room
Please visit soon, to enjoy these and other Osborne Collection highlights. If you have a special request or want to bring a group, please call (416) 393-7753.
If you enjoyed this blog post, you may also like to visit the Canadian Toy Collectors’ Society
And check into the Antique Toy Collectors’ Show:
“A show for toy collectors across Ontario takes over the International Centre in Mississauga this November. Attendees can mingle with other collectors and peruse a huge selection of antique and rare toys, teddy bears, trains and holiday decorations.
Enthusiast Doug Jarvis has been organizing collector’s events for more than three decades and has turned the Toronto Toy, Doll and Train Collector’s Show into the biggest event of its kind in Canada.”
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