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A review by nicktomjoe
Cautionary Tales for Children by Hilaire Belloc, Edward Gorey
4.0
I’m really reviewing an earlier edition with the Bentley illustrations, a 1977 reprint of the 1940 ‘album edition.’
There is a deeply subversive element to these that reminds me sharply of the Saki “unsuitable story” where conventional morality is looked at with a cynical eye: the little girl who fails to pay attention to a “beware of the bull” sign - and meets a bull, which “confirmed in her instinctive guess that literature breeds distress;” or that Oxford “serves to make a kind of Fold or Pen wherein to herd a lot of Learned Men.” Funny, with a ponderous tone that adds to the delight, they are perhaps dated for the modern reader, but still contain joys such as “Maria Who Made Faces and a Deplorable Marriage.” Bizarre topsy-turvy of over-moralistic children’s lit:
“Just you work for Humanity, never you mind
If Humanity seems to have left you behind.”
There is a deeply subversive element to these that reminds me sharply of the Saki “unsuitable story” where conventional morality is looked at with a cynical eye: the little girl who fails to pay attention to a “beware of the bull” sign - and meets a bull, which “confirmed in her instinctive guess that literature breeds distress;” or that Oxford “serves to make a kind of Fold or Pen wherein to herd a lot of Learned Men.” Funny, with a ponderous tone that adds to the delight, they are perhaps dated for the modern reader, but still contain joys such as “Maria Who Made Faces and a Deplorable Marriage.” Bizarre topsy-turvy of over-moralistic children’s lit:
“Just you work for Humanity, never you mind
If Humanity seems to have left you behind.”