Truly Festive Children’s Stories

Truly Festive Children’s Stories

Dec 18, 2014 | Articles, Children's books featured, Childrens' Books, Christmas

The magic and wonder of Christmas for many readers starts with the classic Christmas tales that we read as children and the adaptations of those stories that we see on our television screens every year. However, it is with classic children’s Christmas books that we first find much of the imagery and many of the traditions that we have come to associate with the festive season.

Walt Disney, The Night Before Christmas, 1934

Walt Disney, The Night Before Christmas, 1934

 

Indeed, it is perhaps in celebration of these beloved Christmas stories, full of presents and treats and delights, that so many of the best-loved examples of children’s literature are essentially Christmas stories. For many children, Christmas is what creates a sense of magic and wonder in their imaginations and, through gifting, helps to instil a love for great books.

Does this help to explain the extraordinary longevity and emotive freshness of so many Christmas books? How is it that Raymond Briggs’s The Snowman or Father Christmas command such a special place not only with children but our own nostalgia for this time of year? Why is it that the opening lines of Clement Clarke Moore’s A Visit from St. Nicholas fill us with such warmth? We delight in the brash antics and uncouthness of the Grinch, and Dr.Seuss’s illustrations for How the Grinch Stole Christmas are every bit as iconic as the classic image of Santa Claus; a naughty, impish counterpart to the gentle, kindly figure of Father Christmas.

 

Grinch Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, 1957

Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, 1957

 

You cannot mention Santa Claus without bringing up his most famous and beloved compatriot Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. Noticeably absent from the roll call of magic reindeer named in Clement Clarke Moore’s poem, Rudolph is a later addition who quite literally outshone Comet, Dasher, Blitzen and company. In 1939, Robert L. May wrote a little story for an in-store Christmas promotional giveaway. The department store was called Montgomery Ward: the story was called Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Two and a half million copies were distributed that year alone, when in 1949 Johnny Marks wrote the famous song about the reindeer who saved Christmas.

 

The first printing of the Rudolph sheet music inscribed “Dear Marlin, Merry Christmas, Johnny Marks.”

The first printing of the Rudolph sheet music inscribed “Dear Marlin, Merry Christmas, Johnny Marks.”

 

While Robert L. May is responsible for creating Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer; where does our modern conception of Santa Claus come from? The image of the jolly Saint Nick with his sack full of gifts, arriving on Christmas Eve on his sleigh drawn by flying reindeer owes much to Clement Clarke Moore’s, A Visit from St. Nicholas. When it comes to Christmas there is arguably no more memorable line than: “Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.” Not only was this poem largely responsible for many of the conceptions regarding Santa Clause from the nineteenth century on, but it also had a massive influence on popularising the tradition of gift-giving at Christmas.

A Christmas Carol is without question the most famous and well-regarded Christmas story of them all and the story of Ebenezar Scrooge’s redemption and turn toward good has been adapted countless times with both the Muppets and the Flintstones, among other children’s favourites, offering their versions of the classic Christmas tale. While not written as a story for children, Charles Dickens’s novel, much sought after by collectors, has become such an enduring classic that it has transcended its original shape to become a story for all ages celebrated and retold again and again each year.

A Christmas Carol, illustrated by Arthur Rackham, 1915

A Christmas Carol, illustrated by Arthur Rackham, 1915

 

By 1947 the modern conception of Santa Claus that we have become familiar with was almost fully formed. The white beard, red clothes, reindeer with sleigh festooned with toys. This modern depiction owes much to Valentine Davies’s screenplay and subsequent novelization for Miracle on 34th Street. Davies wrote a 120-page novella after completing the screenplay for the original 1947 film which went on to be adapted multiple times most notably by John Hughes in 1994.

Valentine Davies, Miracle on 34th Street, 1947

Valentine Davies, Miracle on 34th Street, 1947

 

Many of our favourite Christmas stories are films, however, a vast majority of these Christmas films on based on or inspired by early books and short stories. The most notable example of this is It’s a Wonderful Life, the beloved classic starring James Stewart. Based on the short story, The Greatest Gift, by Philip Van Doren Stern, originally self-published as a booklet in 1943 before being published as a book in December 1944, with illustrations by Rafaello Busoni. The story itself was loosely based on A Christmas Carol and owes much to Dickens’s original work.

Other great Christmas stories continued regularly to be written, published, animated and filmed. New classics like Raymond Briggs’s 1978 book and, still astounding, animated masterpiece, The Snowman. A tear-jerking and beautiful tragedy that manages to celebrate the joy and magic of a boyhood dreamscape, the wonder in a child’s heart at the glory of those special days—friendship and love and togetherness—and yet hides none of the bitter sorrow and sadness which mark the passing of years, the loss of fleeting moments. Those who were with us once but are missing now. The Snowman was one of those creations which seemed timeless and eternal from the very start.

Raymond Briggs, The Snowman, 1978

Raymond Briggs, The Snowman, 1978

Every year studios big and small put out Christmas movies good and not so good, and every so often a diamond emerges from the glistening paste. One such masterpiece which, like The Snowman, seemed timeless from the get go, was The Polar Express. The film was nominated for 3 Oscars but the 1985 book by Chris Van Allsburg, upon which the film was based, had gone one better having won the prestigious Caldecott medal for best children’s illustrated book of the year. The Polar Express exemplifies perfectly that quality which links so many of these enduring publications and the motion pictures that walk with them hand in hand. The quality of wonder, of magic, of the purity of childhood faith. It ends:

“At one time, most of my friends could hear the bell, but as years passed it fell silent for all of them. Though I have grown old, the bell still rings for me, as it does for all who truly believe,”

Chris Van Allsburg, The Polar Express, 1985.

Chris Van Allsburg, The Polar Express, 1985.

 

Collecting Economics

Collecting Economics

Sep 27, 2014 | Collectors' Guides, History

The foundational book in classical economic theory is Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), but there is a large literature in the field of economics preceding the publication of that remarkable work.

One of the earliest notable English books in the field is Proclamation for the Evaluation of Certain Base Monies (1560) by Sir Thomas Gresham. A merchant and financier, Gresham made a proposal in 1565 for the establishment of what later became the Royal Exchange. As an advisor to Elizabeth I, Gresham noted that a fall in the exchange rate makes the export of good coins profitable, but that their place is taken by over-valued coinage. Later dubbed “Gresham’s Law”, the maxim “good money drives out bad” formed the basis for Elizabethan reform of the coinage in 1560.

John Graunt, a haberdasher, wrote one of the first works of statistical estimation. His Natural and Political Observations made upon the Bills of Mortality (1662) was written to document the onset and spread of bubonic plague, but its legacy is that it is the first statistically based estimation of the population of London. Together with his friend Sir William Petty, Graunt established statistical methods that became the foundation for modern demography. Due to a lack of hard data, the two relied on simple estimation techniques, such as in Petty’s Political Arithmetic (1690).

Discourses on the Publick Revenues, and on the Trade of England (1698)

Discourses on the Publick Revenues, and on the Trade of England (1698)

Charles Davenant applied Petty’s principles in Discourses on the Publick Revenues, and on the Trade of England (1698). Davenant’s belief was that high taxation for debt service acted as a burden on trade, industry and land, thus limiting the economy.

The quintessential book of the mercantile period was Thomas Mun’s England’s Treasure by Forraign Trade (1664). Mun equated money with capital, discussing money in relation to international policy, thus politicising economic thought.  

Although remembered principally as a philosopher, John Locke wrote on the role of the state regarding the economy. In 1691 he revised his 1668 memorandum as Some consideration of the consequences of the lowering of interest and the raising of the value of money. Locke’s motivation behind the revision was the introduction of a bill to alter the rate of interest and standard value of the coinage. He was a firm believer that interest rates should not be set by the state, but should instead be determined by the market.

Atlas Maritimus & Commercialis; Or, a general View of the World (1728)

Atlas Maritimus & Commercialis; Or, a general View of the World (1728)

Daniel Defoe was a prolific writer in the field of economics, adopting the robust persona of the English tradesman. His contribution to the Atlas Maritimus & Commercialis; Or, a general View of the World (1728) challenged his countrymen to duplicate the pattern of English commerce in their foreign trade ventures. He also encouraged those importing goods to source resources from within British territories in order to secure the independence of the British economy.

A more theoretical figure in the economics of this period is John Law. His Money and Trade Consider’d (1705) envisioned a central bank for his native Scotland, empowered to supply paper money. Law took his economic theories to France, where he established a central bank and almost singlehandedly destroyed the French monetary system in the course of four short years. There his path crossed with the Irish economist and speculator Richard Cantillon, who managed to make a fortune from both Law’s failed Mississippi Scheme and the South Sea Bubble. Cantillon’s Essai sur la nature du commerce en général (1755) is the only fully-realised economic system in print before Smith, and a notable influence on him.

Cantillon’s Essai was also an important impetus to the establishment of the physiocrats. François Quesnay’s Physiocratie (1768), a collection of his writings on the law of nature, acted as their principal manifesto. For Quesnay and the physiocrats, the concept of land as the source of all wealth was central. A more capable theorist than Quesnay, Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot wrote several works, including one that had an obvious influence on Adam Smith, Réflexions sur la formation et la distribution des richesses, first published in 1769–70 in the Ephémérides du Citoyen, then in book form in 1788.

An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Economy (1767)

An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Economy (1767)

It was not until the publication of An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Economy (1767) by James Steuart that the phrase “political economy” appeared in the title of an English book. The move away from mercantilism had already been signalled by David Hume in his Political Discourses (1752). But if Adam Smith had not published his great work so soon after, it could well have been James Steuart who was hailed as the founder of political economy.

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