Valediction 21: Penny Toys

Brian Alderson bids farewell to a remarkable volume by an author whose home life was complicated, to say the least.

The picture book, A Book of Penny Toys, saw the light of day during a typically fraught time during the continually fraught life of Edward Gordon Craig, its author and publisher.

He had been born in 1872, the illegitimate son of an architect, Edward Godwin and the actress Ellen Terry but the relationship had failed and at the age of sixteen he had changed his name and been christened Edward Gordon Craig.

From the start of his life, Craig had been ineluctably drawn to things theatrical, especially acting and stage design but things were at a bit of a stand when he hit on the idea of Penny Toys. To his mother’s consternation, in 1893 he had married Helen Mary Gibson (May) with whom he would have four children born annually in quick succession: Rosie, Robin, Philip and Peter. Perhaps with May’s help, in January 1898, he began to edit a magazine The Page, a miscellany of text about literature and the stage along with his own wood engravings. However, while travelling to give some stage performances for pay, he met an old flame Jess Dorynne and went to live with her in a cottage at Hackbridge, Surrey. At around that time, encouraged by his sister Edy and influenced by the illustrations of William Nicholson, he decided to make his own picture book based upon the Penny Toys that he had been collecting from street sellers for years. It seems that the composition of the book which he undertook with Jess was to be illustrated with his own wood engravings which were mostly to be coloured by hand by Jess.

He decided that he would publish the book himself, using a printer in Croydon but a complication arose at the last minute when he discovered that another artist, Mabel Dearmer was also publishing a book on Penny Toys. He therefore had to alter his own title to the present one at the last minute.[1]

Thus Gordon Craig’s Book of Penny Toys arrived in 1899 with the wood engraved illustrations faced by what he called ‘jingles’. A number of these were written using several of what would eventually amount to as many as sixty-five of his pseudonyms, but several were by his sister Edy or his children by May. She would not allow him to meet them at their home, but they would visit him on neutral territory.[2]

With thoughtless ambition Craig had had 550 copies printed of Penny Toys. Mathematics would have told him that hand colouring each image would amount to 11,000 pages. He had left much of that work to Jess and had lost interest in doing it himself with the result that he claimed to have got rid of 250 copies of the book by burning them in his garden (There were probably more lost in this holocaust?).

Nothing was easy, however, for Jess became pregnant in the cottage and by the time that she gave birth to a daughter, Kitty, Edward Gordon Craig had encountered another lover, Elena Meo. Jess was heartbroken at his desertion of her, but this affair was more longer lasting, and he would escape with Elena to Italy where his children, Teddy and Nellie were born. In all the extended family Rosie remained his favourite and he gave the present copy of A Book of Penny Toys to her and it carries her book plate designed by him.

The plates and their colouring give a good idea of why Craig found them so attractive but the Jingles hardly measure up.

The Admiral.

Is the battle lost?

Is the battle won?

Decide for yourselves,

But throw me a bun.

But Rosie would surely have loved them all.

Brian Alderson is a long-time and much-valued contributor to Books for Keeps, founder of the Children’s Books History Society and a former Children’s Books Editor for The Times. His most recent book The 100 Best Children’s Books is published by Galileo Publishing, 978-1903385982, £14.99 hbk.

Biblio

Gordon Craigs Book of Penny Toys. Vig. With letter “c”. Published At The Sign Of The Rose, Hackbridge, Surrey, and Sold By Lamley & Co., 1 Exhibition Road, London. 1899. 335 x 255 mm. 48pp. ([1] Book-plate “Ex Libris. Rosie 1926” [2] blank [3] title-page, as above. [4-5] blank [6-7] “Words” [8-9] blank [10] “Words” cont.] [11] blank [12-13] verso Jingle; recto hand coloured plate [14] blank; [15-76] follow that pattern [77-78] blank. Jacketed paper over boards, title and drawing to front. Imprint to rear. Front free endpaper Signatures and note “and now in 1910, this copy goes on to the Rosie for whom it was made, With Love from Teddy”. Verso blank.

[1] Craig thought she had copied his title but this is not mentioned by Jill Shefrin in her lecture on Mabel Dearmer. Toronto Osborne Collection 1999