CHILDREN’S BOOKS AND THE TAYLOR SISTERS

Turnbull Library Record, Volume XIII, 1 August 1956, Page 8

CHILDREN’S BOOKS AND THE TAYLOR SISTERS

P. C. M. Alcock.

“Though I am young, yet I may die And hasten to Eternity.”

These doleful sentiments, labelled on the title-page “Some excellent verses for the education of youth”, are not an unfair sample of printed children’s literature in England before the middle 18th century. The tone and title of such a well-known work as Isaac Watts’ Divine and Moral Songs for Children (London, 1715) repeats the dominant “good and godly” approach. A Morals Report in those days would find nothing to complain of in the publishing trade for children.

But the children were wiser than the grown men. They never hesitated to steal their elders’ reading. /Esop's Fables , Morte d’Arthur, Pilgrim's Progress, Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels— one after another they stole the plums from the adults’ pantry. And their ears were always open to nursery jingles, oldwives’ tales, rhymes, songs, games, ballads, romances, legends, nurse’s fables of “the Robin Goodfellows, elves, fairies, hobgoblins, of our latter age”. All these, potted in print, were brought to the doorstep up and down the land stuffed in pedlars’ packs crammed tight with laces, pins, combs, tapes, all the gew-gaws of Autolycus, and “Chapmens’ Books, Broadsides, or Half-Sheets, and Lottery Pictures, as Birds, Beasts, London Crys, etc., by the Gross or Dozen”. The “running stationers”, or “flying”, or just “walking” carried these rough little booklets, sometimes with a few crude cuts, under such titles as Tom Thumb, The Babes in the Wood, The History of Sir Richard Whittington, thrice Lord Mayor of London, Don Quixote , Jack and the Giant, and so on.

In 1774 John Newbery published “A little pretty pocket book . . . intended for the instruction and amusement of Little iVlaster Tommy and Pretty Miss Polly”, sold by itself for 6d. or “with a Ball or Pin-Cushion” for Bd. This was

the first of a flock of little books issued by Newbery from his shop, “The Bible and Sun”, in Saint Paul’s Churchyard. Newbery’s books were colourfully bound in gilt and pretty flowered papers, and had special illustrations, as have the better children’s books ever since. And since that day the continuity of good books for children has not been broken. Alice in Wonderland, Treasure Island, the picture books of Caldecott, Crane, Kate Greenaway, The Tale of Veter Rabbit, Babar— these have supplanted the “awful warning” school.

Among the better children’s writers at the start of last century were two sisters, Ann and Jane Taylor, of whom the former wrote that joy to after-dinner reciters and Lord Tennyson, My Mother, and the latter produced Meddlesome Matty, and what A. H. Turnbull called “the well-known ditty, Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” Part of the excellent Library display for Children’s Book Week recently included a commonplace book and four diaries of Ann Taylor.

Ann (1782-1866) and Jane (1783-1824) Taylor were both daughters of Isaac Taylor, engraver, friend of Goldsmith and Richardson, later Independent minister. Their first book was Original Foetus for Infant Minds. By Several Ybung Versons (1809), with a memorable dedication, “To those parents into [whose] hands this little volume may chance to fall, it is very respectfully inscribed; and very affectionately to that interesting little race—the race of children”. The Library holds Ann Taylor’s own copy of this with MS. inscription and minor emendations. A shabby little volume, 5 x 35 inches, quarter-bound in green roan with worn marbled boards, its list of contents reveals the book’s

character: “To a Butterfly, on giving it Liberty”, “James and the Shoulder of Mutton”, “Creation”, “The Palace and the Cottage”, “Idle Dicky and the Goat”, “Washing and Dressing”, “George and the Chimney-sweeper”, and so on. This was followed by Rhymes for the Nursery (1806) and Hymns for Infant Minds (1810 and 1811). In the following year Ann was married to the Reverend Joseph Gilbert, a Congregational minister, and this ended the literary partnership of the sisters. Their poems have been reprinted often and, at different times collections, with Kate Greenaway’s illustrations and with a preface by Edith Sitwell. Other

members of the Taylor family were inspired by their sisters’ example to write, and their father wrote The Biography of a Brown Loaf, while “Airs. Taylor of Ongar” produced Practical Hints to Young Females, Maternal Solicitude for a Daughter’s Best Interests, and The Present of a Mistress to a Young Servant. The Library holds early or first editions of most of the Taylors’ works, including another small and amusing book from Ann’s library that appears to be by her—“ Signor Topsy-Turvy’s Wonderful Magic Lantern; or The World Turned Upside Down. By the author of My Mother, and other Poems”.

Ann Taylor’s commonplace book cannot be called very exciting. Bound in green roan, measuring 192- x 16 cm., and kept in a green morocco slip-case, it contains verses written on Christmas Days from 1855 to 1862 as a kind of “chain” or “circle” game by Mrs. Gilbert and the assembled family. “We have always been faithful to anniversaries,” says her note, and she goes on to explain the beginning of the custom. “Josiah and James in a long walk on that [ 1855] Christmas morning, concocted a couplet suitable to each of the party (17 in number) then to assemble; I believe I added a few, but so little is remembered that I fear I can make no entry.” Of Ann’s versification Edith Sitwell says, “Everything in these verses is as neat as can be, excepting, occasionally, the verses. These are a little apt to bend at the waist.” The two following quotations are among the more readable lines: “Another Christmas, and we meet

Unchanged, or only more complete; Should changes come, why still, I guess We may be, neither more nor less!” In 1856 these rather pleasant lines are given to the baby Annette: “Dear little one, long may you live to remember The joy of these bright Twenty-fifths of December; I don’t mean plum puddings, nor apples, nor filberts, But dear Aunts and Uncles, and Grandmama Gilberts.” Four pocket-books of Ann Taylor, for the years 1804, 1807, 1829, and 1850, each measure 12 x 8 cms., and are bound in crimson roan with a folding flap and clasp. They are very attractive little books, with engraved plates, stories,

poems, articles, hackney coach tares, watermen’s fares on the Thames, marketing tables, and facing each weekly diary space is a page for cash accounts filled in most punctiliously. The first three of these belong to a series, The Minor's Pocket-book, printed by Darton and Harvey, well-known children’s publishers, and they have printed in them several early poems by Ann and Jane. The entries are prosaic to a degree: “Jemima drank tea at Mrs. Blower’s”, “Jane and I went church meeting evening”, “Baptist lecture”, “No event”. Only very rarely are there hints at Ann’s poeticizing, “Heard from Darton with money” (29 Feb., 1804), “Darton ordered a 2d. volume of moral songs” (30 Nov., 1804.) But the incessant repetition of humdrum entries and meticulous accounts serves, as in some detailed Dutch interior, to paint the busy, frugal, pious life of this woman, first engraver’s ’prentice daughter, then minister’s wife, who jotted down so much in the scant leisure of a crowded life. Isaac Taylor’s two daughters are far from the least in the long list of entertainers for “that interesting little race, the race of children”.