The Orgre's transformations: Three Scenes — "The Ogre turns himself into an Elephant...Tom pretends to be frightened," "The Ogre turns himself into a Lion! Tom Puss is still more frightened & asks the Ogre to turn into a Mouse" & "The Ogre turns himself into a Mouse..Tom Puss springs upon him and kills him!" — seventh illustration "George Cruikshank's Fairy Library" (1865)

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The Orgre's transformations

George Cruikshank

1864

Three etchings each 9.7 cm wide formatted as one

14.6 x 9.7 cm framed, with three captions

Facing page 16 in the final part of George Cruikshank's Fairy Library (1865) with illustrations by George Cruikshank.

The story was originally issued in a forty-page, paperback format, 18 cm high by 13 cm wide, with eleven engravings on six pages, drawn and etched by George Cruikshank, in 1864, ten years after he had issued "Cinderella and The Glass Slipper."

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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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Passage Illustrated: Introduction

[T]hey had arrived at the outer gate of the Ogre's castle, at which Tom Puss had arrived some time before ; and having found his way to the room in which the Ogre was sitting, apologised for intruding; but having heard that he possessed the wonderful power of changing himself into any animal, and that being a thing which it was almost impossible to believe, he had taken the liberty of calling, in the hope that his honour would kindly let him see some of these wonderful changes, in order that seeing might be believing. The Ogre, who was, as before stated, a magician, or sorcerer, and a very artful, wicked man, immediately consented to oblige his visitor, having an object in doing so. It appears that if the Ogre did change himself into the form of some animal, he was obliged to do so three times, and that if anyone asked him to change into any particular animal the third time, he was compelled to comply with the request, before he could exercise his wicked art against anyone who might have come into, or that he had trapped into his power. Tom Puss was aware of this, and acted accordingly. — George Cruikshank, "Puss in Boots," pp. 14-15.

A. The Ogre turns himself into an Elephant...Tom pretends to be frightened.

"Now," said Tom, "let me see you change into some large animal." "I'll change into an elephant," said the Ogre, and instantly he appeared to be enveloped in a cloud of thick smoke, out of which arose what appeared to be a large elephant. Puss started with surprise and alarm, and begged that he would assume the shape of a smaller animal; then came the cloud of smoke again, in the midst of which his disagreeable voice was heard, — George Cruikshank, "Puss in Boots," p. 15.

B. The Ogre turns himself into a Lion! Tom Puss is still more frightened & asks the Ogre to turn into a Mouse

Puss started with surprise and alarm, and begged that he would assume the shape of a smaller animal; then came the cloud of smoke again, in the midst of which his disagreeable voice was heard, "I'll change myself into a lion," and, at the same instant, there stood the fierce "king of the forest." — George Cruikshank, "Puss in Boots," p. 15.

C. The Ogre turns himself into a Mouse..Tom Puss springs upon him and kills him!

"Oh!" said Puss, "you frighten me so; take the form of something smaller; take the form of a mouse." Again came the cloud of smoke, in the midst of which was heard a voice like the growl of a lion, "I'll change into the form of a mouse," and, "in the twinkling of an eye," a mouse was seen running across the floor as if to hide itself under the table (upon which hung a cloth that came down to the ground); but quick as Mr. Ogre Mouse might be, Tom Puss was too quick for him, for Tom sprang upon the wicked creature like a Hash of lightning, and killed him before he had time to change himself, as he intended to do, into a great dog, and then worry poor Tom Puss to death. But Tom had won the victory! and had put an end to a horrible and wicked man; and not liking to venture upon making a meal of such stuff as this mock mouse was made of, jumped up to the window with the dead mouse in his mouth, and dropped it into the castle moat, or piece of water that was under the window. — George Cruikshank, "Puss in Boots," p. 15.

The Perrault Original: Cannibalism

Cruikshank again mitigates Puss's devious and occasionally unpleasant behaviour in the Perrault original (although he remains very much a shrewd psychologist and trickster) by changing how Tom Puss hygienically disposes of the Ogre's corpse, which he does not eat:

The master cat came at last to a stately castle, the lord of which was an ogre, the richest that had ever been known. All the lands which the king had just passed by belonged to this castle. The cat, who had taken care to inform himself who this ogre was and what he could do, asked to speak with him, saying he could not pass so near his castle without having the honor of paying his respects to him.

The ogre received him as civilly as an ogre could do, and invited him to sit down. "I have heard," said the cat, "that you are able to change yourself into any kind of creature that you have a mind to. You can, for example, transform yourself into a lion, an elephant, or the like."

"That is true," answered the ogre very briskly; "and to convince you, I shall now become a lion."

The cat was so terrified at the sight of a lion so near him that he leaped onto the roof, which caused him even more difficulty, because his boots were of no use at all to him in walking on the tiles. However, the ogre resumed his natural form, and the cat came down, saying that he had been very frightened indeed.

"I have further been told," said the cat, "that you can also transform yourself into the smallest of animals, for example, a rat or a mouse. But I can scarcely believe that. I must admit to you that I think that that would be quite impossible."

"Impossible!" cried the ogre. "You shall see!"

He immediately changed himself into a mouse and began to run about the floor. As soon as the cat saw this, he fell upon him and ate him up. — Charles Perrault, "The Master Cat or, Puss in Boots."

Perrault, however, more effectively dramatises Puss's mock-terror of the Ogre-lion, and eliminates as unnecessary the transformation from Ogre to elephant (an interesting visual element that Cruikshank could not pass up); all the "Master Cat" has to do is appeal to the Ogre's vanity and showmanship. In contrast, Cruikshank utilizes the progressively smaller accompanying panels to show the gradual diminishment in the Ogre's power leading up to Puss's inevitable triumph over him. Once again, cunning and strategy show themselves superior to the brute force that the first two transformations in Cruikshank imply.

Commentary

Oddly enough, this anthology does not contain a "List of Illustrations" for Puss in Boots, and therefore the reader of the separate text of 1864 is unprepared for this triptych since all the previous illustrations for this story have been either full-page or two to a page. Cruikshank's juxtaposing all three in a narrative sequence, like a modern-day cartoon page, enables readers to assess all three panels simultaneously, and so that they know how Puss will triumph over the formidable but not-too-bright Ogre in advance of reading the accompanying text. However, the effect is analeptic; that is, the readers have already encountered the Ogre's transforming himself into an elephant (in the largest of the three panels, having a height of 5.7 cm, exclusive of caption) and into a rampant lion (in the second-largest of the three panels, having a height of 5.3 cm, exclusive of caption) before reading the text in the upper two-thirds of page 16 (facing), in which,emulating the progressively smaller creatures into which the Ogre changes himself, the illustrator concludes with a very small panel, measuring only 2.7 cm in height, exclusive of caption. And Puss, who is tiny compared to the elephant in the first panel, and still squeezed off into the right-hand margin in the second, dominates the third panel by virtue of both size and position; his staff concomitantly grows in size from top to bottom panels, too. Cruikshank creates a sense of movement and energy by placing the elephant with his curving trunk to right of centre above, and then placing the lion with his frizzy mane and swishing tale to the left of centre in the second panel, before eliminating him entirely in the bottom panel. Indeed, all that is left of the powerful Ogre is the pair of chair legs and the bottom of the table-cloth that are so large in the upper frames. Puss casts a slight shadow in the top frame, compared to the massive shadow of the bulk of the Ogre-elephant; the Ogre-lion's shadow still engulfs the throne-like chair (symbolic of his status as ruler of the castle) in the central panel. In the bottom frame, Cruikshank uses extreme chiaroscuro to highlight the dark figure of Puss and push the shadow to the right. The table-cloth and chair provide narrative-pictorial continuity across the three panels, but only a fragment of the large flagstone floor remains at the bottom, and the panelled wall and doorway have disappeared. Presumably the book that lies open on the table contains the Ogre's transformational spells. It, too, has disappeared entirely in the final panel, although Puss's feathered hat (occupying the same position in each) is at its largest, left of centre.

Related Materials

Bibliography

Bentley, Nicolas; Michael Slater and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1990.

British Library. "George Cruikshank's Fairy Library." Romantics and Victorians. https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/george-cruikshanks-fairy-library

Carpenter, Humphrey, and Mari Pritchard. The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature. Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1984.

Cohen, Jane Rabb. Part One, "Dickens and His Early Illustrators: 1. George Cruikshank. Charles Dickens and His Original Illustrators. Columbus: Ohio University Press, 1980. Pp. 15-38.

Cruikshank, George. Puss in Boots. Illustrated by George Cruikshank. The fourth volume in George Cruikshank's Fairy Library. London: Routledge, Warne & Routledge, 1864. (Price one shilling) 11 etchings on 6 tipped-in pages, including frontispiece.

Cruikshank, George. George Cruikshank's Fairy Library: "Hop-O'-My-Thumb," "Jack and the Bean-Stalk," "Cinderella," "Puss in Boots". London: George Bell, 1865.

Daniels, Morna. "The Tale of Charles Perrault and Puss in Boots." Electronic British Library Journal. 2002. pp. 1-14. http://docplayer.net/21672800-The-tale-of-charles-perrault-and-puss-in-boots.html

Guildhall Library blog. "A Gem from Guildhall Library's Shelves: George Cruikshank's Fairy Library by George Cruikshank published by Routledge in London (c. 1870)." 8 August 2014. https://guildhalllibrarynewsletter.wordpress.com/2016/08/08/a-gem-from-guildhall-librarys-shelves-george-cruikshanks-fairy-library-by-george-cruikshank-published-by-routledge-in-london-c1870/

Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, Tulane University. "George Cruikshank." http://library.tulane.edu/exhibits/exhibits/show/fairy_tales/george_cruikshank

Hubert, Judd D. "George Cruikshank's Graphic and Textual Reactions to Mother Goose." Marvels & Tales, Volume 25, Number 2, 2011 (pp. 286-297). Project Muse. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/462736/pdf

Kitton, Frederic G. "George Cruikshank." Dickens and His Illustrators. London: Chapman & Hall, 1899. Pp. 1-28.

Kotzin, Michael C. Dickens and the Fairy Tale. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1972.

McLean, Ruari. George Cruikshank: His Life and Work as a Book Illustrator. English Masters of Black-and-White. London: Art and Technics, 1948.

Perrault, Charles. "The Master Cat or, Puss in Boots." Folklore and Mythology Electronic Texts, University of Pittsburgh, 2002. From Andrew Lang's The Blue Fairy Book (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., ca. 1889), pp. 141-147. Edited by D. L. Ashliman. http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/perrault04.html

Schlicke, Paul. "Oxford Reader's Companion to Dickens. Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1999. Pp. 231-232.

Stone, Harry. Dickens and the Invisible World: Fairy Tales, Fantasy, and Novel-Making. Bloomington, IN: Indiana U. P., 1979.

Vogler, Richard, The Graphic Works of George Cruikshank. New York: Dover, 1979.

Last modified 8 July 2017