[Victorian Web Home — Children's Literature —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> George Cruikshank —> Next]

Passage Illustrated

and as he was telling this [story about the Ogre and the boots to his parents] in came the other boys, crying, —

"O father! O mother!" and then they were soon all crying with joy, and laughing and hugging one another; and then they all sat down to breakfast; and as they were taking their breakfast, little Hop asked his father if he did not think it would be best for him to set off to court without a moment's delay, to present the Seven-league Boots to the King, and inform him about the Giant. The Count and Countess both approved of this plan; and accordingly, as soon as he had finished his breakfast — which was not long, for it did not take much time to fill such a little stomach as his — Hop took his cap, and they all came out to the door to see him off. The Count pointed out the direction of the great city where the King's palace was, but Hop thought he would try if the Boots knew their way their; so, after they had all kissed him and wished him success, he bade them good-bye, and said to the Boots, —

"To the King's palace!" Off they set; and, as it was only a few leagues distance, he was there before you could count ten. Well, when he arrived at the palace, he came into the courtyard at once, to the astonishment of all the officers and soldiers in the place; and he demanded, as loudly as he could, to be led into the presence of the King without delay, as he had an important communication to make to his Majesty. Accordingly, he was led to the audience-chamber, where the King and Queen were seated upon a throne, and a young Prince by their side. The chamberlain laving announced this extraordinary visitor, introduced him to the King and Queen, who were much surprised and amused at seeing such a tiny little gentleman. He made a fine bow, and informed his Majesty about the Giant-Ogre, and also described the wonderful Boots, which he took off and placed before the throne. The Boots, which were, of course, so very small when he had them on, when off they expanded themselves into a pair of good-sized Boots, and they then made most polite bows to the King and Queen, and also to the young Prince. The King at once saw the importance of possessing such invaluable Boots, and determining to buy them of the little fellow, inquired his name. — pp. 26-28.

The Context in Perrault

When Hop-o'-my-Thumb saw this he said to his brothers, "Courage, my lads! never fear! you have nothing to do but to steal away and get home while the Ogre is fast asleep, and leave me to shift for myself."

The brothers now were very glad to do whatever he told them, and so they soon came to their father's house. In the mean time Hop-o'-my-Thumb went up to the Ogre softly, pulled off his seven-league boots very gently, and put them on his own legs; for though the boots were very large, yet being fairy-boots, they could make themselves small enough to fit any leg they pleased.

As soon as ever Hop-o'-my-Thumb had made sure of the Ogre's seven-league boots, he went at once to the palace, and offered his services to carry orders from the King to his army, which was a great way off, and to bring back the quickest accounts of the battle they were just at that time fighting with the enemy. In short, he thought he could be of more use to the King than all his mail-coaches, and so should make his fortune in this manner. He succeeded so well that in a short time he made money enough to keep himself, his father, mother, and six brothers, without the trouble of working, for the rest of their lives. Having done this, he went back to his father's cottage, where all the family were delighted to see him again. As the great fame of his boots had been talked of at court in this time the King sent for him, and indeed employed him very often in the greatest affairs of the state, so that he became one of the richest men in the kingdom. — http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/perrault08.html

Commentary

In some accounts of the story, Hop-o'-My-Thumb then brings the Ogre's treasure to the king, and then serves as his messenger. In Cruikshank's account, Hop-o'-My-Thumb presents the Seven-League Boots to the King in front of the court, with guards, courtiers, and princesses looking on. In the illustration, the Queen prompts her young son (wearing long hair in the aristocratic fashion, but otherwise implying some connection to the Prince of Wales, Edward, born 9 November 1841, and therefore about twelve at the time of the composition) to move forward, perhaps so that he can better see the remarkably tiny visitor, and, too, perhaps so that the obviously clever little fellow can see the future king whom he will serve. The visual idiom of the scene is decidedly mediaeval, with ornate thrones and Gothic panels above, and fashions from the period; the elegant illustration with leaded-panes in Gothic arches therefore does little to prepare the reader for Cruikshank's nineteenth-century Prohibitionist manifesto on the page following. And, contrary to the conventions of fairytales, Hop does not marry a princess or inherit a kingdom; however, thanks to his industrious nature and his judicious use of the magical boots, he does become the wealthiest man in the kingdom and restore the family fortunes.

The chief features of this illustration are the royal family in mediaeval garb, the gesticulating Hop — and the fabled Seven League Boots, which appear in a dozen other European folktales as well as Goethe's Faust, when in Part Two, Act Four, the demonic companion of the protagonist, Mephistopheles, employs such boots himself, rather than conferring them upon the protagonist to aid him in the completion of some daunting task, which is the usual pattern. The term "Seven-League Boots" (that is, footgear that enable the wearer to advance twenty-one miles in a single stride) seems to have originated as a translation from the French "bottes de sept lieues", popularised by Charles Perrault's fairy tale Le petit Poucet. They are the last remnant of several other "sevens" in the original story: seven sons of the woodsman, and seven crowned daughters of the Ogre, seven being a number traditionally associated with magic powers and special significance, as in "The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World," "The Seven Arts," "The Seven Champions of Christendom," "The Seven Heavens," "The Seven Sleepers," "The seven last words of Christ," and "The Seven Deadly Sins" — to say nothing of the infamous neighbourhood known as Seven Dials in London, depicted by Cruikshank himself in Sketches by Boz (1836, 1839).

Cruikshank's mediaevalism here, although a little artificial, is quite different from that of William Morris in that Cruikshank does not generalise the period as a golden age of the arts and social coherence as Morris did. Morris emphasized the heroism, chivalry, and beauty of the middle ages, rather than the famine, poverty, and brutality that characterise Cruikshank's initial images of the period as suggested by the story. Moreover, whereas Morris's mediaevalism involved escaping from the distasteful aspects of the modern age for that artist, Cruikshank seems to have believed in the possibility of improving the present age through industry, education, — and the total prohibition of alcoholic consumption, and the suppression of gaming and gambling. On the very page facing the mediaeval court scene in which Hop and the boots bow the bearded monarch and his young queen (resembling Victoria), the King appoints his old school friend Prime Minister;

and also promoted little Hop-o' my-Thumb to the post of Messenger Extraordinary to the King, and Director of Telegraphs; and the Queen, who took a great liking to the Countess, appointed her Mistress of the Robes. [28-29]

Moreover, at the conclusion of the story, disregarding the mediaeval setting of the final illustration, Cruikshank embraces a utopian vision of nineteenth-century Britain, foreseeing universal education, literacy and vocational training, and the abolition of both gambling and alcohol consumption, with a resulting improvement in worker productivity and the gross national product. The reforms instituted by the new "Prime Minister" (not a mediaeval "Chancellor") occur because, as coincidence would have it, the Count and the King are old school friends ("companions in youth") and office of Prime Minister happens to be vacant. Instead of becoming a messenger for mediaeval armies, Hop becomes the a corporate "Director" of Telegraphs, and counsels the King to conquer the giants and ogres, and then, instead of executing them, deploying their enormous strength to useful purposes, "and employed them, under guards, at different places where great national works and improvements were required, — such as new roads, draining marshes, and making harbours ofd refuge and security for ships" (29). The political model is not the mediaeval "kingdom," but the modern "nation." In spite of the traditional scene at court that concludes the visual program of the fairy tale, this is no longer a backward country beset (as at the beginning of the story) by privation and food shortages, but an advanced European country. And, unlike the nemesis of the traditional fairy-tale, the hero does not marry a princess or slay the antagonist; Hop does, however, act as catalyst for highly beneficial social change, and does restore the family fortunes. His appointment to government in this 1853 mixed-media work coincides with another progressive appointment in the real world, that of Florence Nightingale, who in that same year accepted her first administrative position as superintendent of the Hospital for Invalid Gentlewomen.

Bibliography

Benét's Reader's Encyclopedia. New York: Harper & Row, 1948, rpt. 1987.

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.

Koehnemann, Aaron. "Abstract." Ph. D. thesis, The Ogre as Lycomorph. MO Space: University of Missouri — Columbia, 2010. https://mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/handle/10355/8450

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

Vogler, Richard A. (ed.). Graphic Works of George Cruikshank. New York: Dover, 1979.

---

Victorian
Web

Fairy
Tales

Illus-
tration

George
Cruikshank

Next

Last modified 24 June 2017