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Passage Illustrated

"Fee, faw, fum,
I smell the blood of an Englishman;
Let him be alive, or let him be dead,
I'll grind his bones to make my bread!"

And with that he took his great knife in his hand, and went smelling about the room, till he came to the place where Hop and brothers were hiding. The noise the Giant made woke them all up, and he cried out in a voice like the roaring of a bull, —

"Come out there!" The poor frightened boys crept out and stood trembling before him; when he saw that they were all come out from their hiding-place, he sat down upon the box ["great square wooden thing that looked almost as big as their father's hut" p. 17], and looking round to his wife, he roared out, "So, this is the way you deceive me! If you were not so old and tough, I would eat you up for my dinner to-morrow!" Upon which she burst into a loud laugh.

"Deceive you indeed!" she said; "what should I deceive you for, darling? I only hid them for a bit of fun; I knew you would smell them out, and I thought it would be an agreeable surprise for you."

"Haw! haw!" laughed the Ogre; "is it so? Let us have a look at them;" and stooping down, he discovered poor little Hop for the first time. "Why, what have we here?" he exclaimed, as he lifted him up between his great finger and thumb. "Well, this is a delicate morsel!" and he was going to pop him into his ugly mouth, that looked like a great coal-tub; but although poor Hop was dreadfully frightened, he did not lose his senses, but cried out aloud to the Ogre-Giant for mercy, and to spare him; and the brothers, seeing their dear little Hop in such danger, all went down on their knees and cried out to the Ogre to spare their little brother. At the same moment his wife laid her hand upon his shoulder, and said, —

"What are you going to do? You'll spoil all! You've had a good supper, ten minutes ago, so you cannot be hungry already; and after all that mutton you would not be able to taste such a delicate relish. — "Hop-O' My-Thumb and The Seven-League Boots," p. 19-20.

Commentary

Cruikshank, perhaps wishing to avoid terrifying his child-readers, has deviated from the original story in one significant respect: he eliminates the plot-gambit involving the Ogre's mistaking his own children (seven daughters wearing golden crowns) for Hop and his brothers. Although he has spared them temporarily because he discovers them after he has eaten his dinner, in the middle of the night the giant gets hungry and leaves his bed to murder the boys. In the dark, however, he cannot actually see his prey, so he has to resort to touching them. However, anticipating that something like this might happen, Hop has removed the crowns of the Ogre's sleeping daughters, replacing them with his brothers' caps. When he feels the crowns on Hop-o'-My-Thumb's and his brothers' heads he mistakes them for his daughters, and murders his daughters instead. The excision of this incident moves the story along, and shifts the focus from the terrifying activities of the cannibalistic Ogre to the escape plan executed by the cunning Hop.

The bug-eyed Ogre has a wife of more human features, proportions, and sympathies who attempts to intervene of behalf of the six boys who have sought shelter under her roof. The simply-furnished room itself does not seem wholly appropriate to the "very large house" with a "great gate" (15) that Cruikshank has mentioned; rather, the wooden beams and massive fireplace (left) suggest that this is, at best, a fortified farmhouse. The ladder that the giantess has to use to get plates down from the dresser in the kitchen suggests a strong correlation between the backdrop in the text and the kitchen shown in the illustration. However, the shag-haired Ogre is a mere caricature, not so much a malevolent character out of a child's nightmare as a monstrous exaggeration of an uncivilised brute. Both menacing husband and the kindly wife, like the "Count" and "Countess" earlier, are dressed in the mediaeval fashion, and the giant has a cap (hanging on a peg near him, and seen in subsequent illustrations) like the Count's in The Father proposes to lose the Children. The three caps of the boys, lying on the floor, may be a remnant of the original story's subplot involving the giant's seven daughters; however, this Ogre, as the Victorian readers would have expected, apparently has no children because he is anti-social, egocentric, and alcoholic; he comes home drunk, and then threatens his wife and her guests; in other words, he does not deserve to have a family. Cruikshank, however, has had to retain the giant's wife in order to advance the plot. He has organised the composition around the two adults, and has placed Hop at the apex of a triangle formed by the Ogre and his wife, forcing the eye upwards from the petitioning boys at the base of the triangle, and creating suspense as neither the text opposite nor the drawing itself (originally done in Indian ink) indicates whether the giant will eat Hop on a whim at this moment, or temporarily spare him. Thus, the drawing shows children at the mercy of forces that they can neither control or understand.

Bibliography

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

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

Cruikshank, George. Hop-O'-My-Thumb and the Seven-League Boots. Illustrated by George Cruikshank. George Cruikshank's Fairy Library. London: David Bogue, 1853. (Price one shilling)

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/

The Hockliffe Project. "Fables and Fairy Tales. 0038A: George Cruikshank, Puss in Boots." http://hockliffe.dmu.ac.uk/items/0038A.html

Howard-Tilton Memorial Library. "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.

Toledo Museum. "George Cruikshank's "Hop-O'-My-thumb." Story-Telling in Miniature. ​ http://www.toledomuseum.org/exhibitions/online-catalogues/storytelling-in-miniature/118/

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Last modified 22 June 2017