"Books have reference numbers too"

This is the second post written by Paula Pintos.  If you haven't read it already her post 'A Twit's story at Seven Stories' was very popular.  Paula spent two months with us on an international student placement and did a huge amount of work for us. Here she gives an excellent account of the Book Collections at Seven Stories. 

Possibly because my brain was trained to focus on librarian-y ideas, I had never considered the role of books in an archive, let alone a literary archive, before coming to Seven Stories for my work placement. That soon changed, though! On my very first day, Collection Officer Paula Wride introduced me to Seven Stories’ book collections, and I instantly found their role fascinating.

One of the first things I absorbed in my time at Seven Stories is that the whole collection grows strategically, in a Lego-like way, in the sense that acquisitions (mostly) follow a structured plan carefully devised to close gaps in areas of interest. Unlike, for instance, a public library, whose role is to offer a collection that fulfils its patrons’ current needs, changing and diverse as they may be. I realised archives collect items in order to build a coherent body of knowledge that is a legacy in itself. Do we have material in the archive that is linked to this potential purchase or donation? Do we already have the artwork for this author’s work? (This is how I picture things, anyway, it may or may not be an accurate portrayal of reality).

Also, archives are (mostly) about preserving and sharing unique things, like an annotated typescript of the first draft for, say, The Gingerbread Man. It is generally not in the nature of books to be unique though, at least since the invention of the printing press! That is, I think, why the book collection's role is often to complement the original artwork and archival material in the collection. They provide a context and show the final result of the creative process, along with subsequent reprints, revised editions and even foreign language versions. (That is also why the books are organised under the name of the donor, instead of some sensible, straightforward system like - I don’t know - Dewey).

Multiple British and foreign language editions of two of Robert Westall’s titles

It’s important to respect the origin and the links between items, so that researchers are able to follow the crumb trails. The best way to express it that I could think of was to steal for the title the fifth law of library science written by Ranganathan, a librarian with an ability to express abstract ideas quite poetically. Libraries and archives are both growing organisms in their own particular way, and Seven Stories’ book collections are part of an archive, rather than a traditional library.

That was possibly not as clear as I thought it would be, actually. Let me give you some examples!

As I mentioned above, one of the roles book collections have in relation to the archive is to complement a parallel body of original archival material (drafts, notes, correspondence, and other exciting things). Kaye Webb’s and Faith Jacques’ collections are good examples of that, as you can read if you browse through the previous blog posts! I think Faith Jacques’ collection is particularly interesting because of the book collection it includes: books that she illustrated for other authors as well as her own titles; books that belonged to her own personal reading library; and most importantly, a huge number of ‘bookmarked’ reference books that she used for researching all the historical background, that would go into the astonishingly accurate and detailed illustrations she was renowned for by authors such as Leon Garfield. Thus, while the archival material provides a picture of Faith Jacques’ creative process as well as her personal and professional life, the book collection offers a glimpse into her own relationship with books as a researcher, an illustrator and a reader.

Books illustrated by Faith Jaques and some of the ‘costume’ reference books she used.

Some of the book collections, however, are not linked to archival material but stand on their own merit. Sometimes because they consist of a substantial number of books about a core ‘children’s book’ theme, or else because they open a window into a particular era, a significant figure or publishing house of/in Children’s Literature, or because they are unique, out of print or hard to find. They also often offer really valuable information on the evolution of the physical book from design, through printing techniques and marketing strategies. 

Possibly the strongest collections of this particular kind are Pat Garret’s and Thimble Press. The former includes ever-growing collections of alphabet books (585 and still growing!), as well as counting and number books from 1930 to 2010.  The Thimble Press Collections, donated by Aidan and Nancy Chambers, include four different core topics for any children’s books collection: traditional tales (1300), pop-up books (72), children’s literature related reference books (270) and multiple editions of ‘Alice’ (25!) 

Paula wrote a blog all about Thimble Press Traditional Tales Collection, so I suggest you read that first, because I have only been working with Thimble Press Children’s Literature Reference Books. In fact, I have been working with several reference book collections, and it has been fascinating. Seven Stories’ donors are often involved with children’s books in a professional way e.g. librarians and storytellers, publishers, editors, agents and reviewers, each of whom has a set of reference books.  So, there is a strong body of reference material covering children’s literature through the centuries from all sorts of angles, including ideology and diversity in children’s books, literary criticism, literacy promotion and education, and biographies of significant figures in the genre. 

Thimble Press Children’s Literature Reference books.

The Thimble Press Reference Books Collections includes 383 books mainly published between the 1940s and 2010. It covers many areas, but it is particularly strong in early children’s literature, biographies of authors and illustrators (such as C.S. Lewis and Edward Ardizzone), and booklists/annual book guides, including both bibliographies of award-winning books and recommended books, from influential librarians and critics such as Elaine Moss and Naomi Lewis. Since the collection covers such a long period, we can also note research topics changing and becoming more contemporary. For instance, the 70s seem to have brought a new wave of literary criticism centered on social matters, and so Aidan and Nancy Chambers also collected books on how children’s books are affected by class, gender, diversity or the construction of the concept of childhood.

As you can imagine, while browsing through the book collections, questions and research ideas often leap at you from the shelves. They are less shy in person than manuscripts, hiding away in their minty coloured boxes. Still, the one book collection that I was shown on my very first day and, being the language nerd I am, am a bit sad to leave only half-explored, is Colin Ray’s Collection of International Children’s Books. This collection was originally built in the 1970s by Colin Ray (husband of Sheila Ray) and lecturer at the Department of Librarianship of Birmingham Polytechnic (later the University of Central England), in order to collect a sample of the foreign books that were being published around the world, to be used for reference by students of Librarianship and external researchers. It is comprised of more than 3,000 books and journals in various foreign languages including French, Spanish, Italian, Russian and Japanese, but also Afrikaans, Catalan, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Persian, Malay, Polish and Swedish. 

The Colin Ray Collection of International Children’s Books and some of the Spanish titles.

This book collection is a bit of a rarity in that it is not attached to an archive and it is not about a particular core topic or a relevant figure, but it offers a fascinating snapshot of what was published, both originally and in translation, all around the world in a particular period. It is quite overwhelming, I could only help to identify some languages (not as easy as it sounds with about 50 of them!) and provide translations into English of book titles that were not in the amazing original ‘old-school’ card catalogue.

Colin Ray’s card catalogue for the International Children’s Books arranged by ‘Author’, Country of publication’, ‘Language’ plus a volume of ‘British Books in Translation’.

I am not immune to its vintage charm, I must say, but what I enjoyed the most is seeing how the Spanish and Catalan books are quite representative of the time, including  familiar names such as illustrator Luis de Horna and author Ana María Matute, and finding a few typed translations of some of the books texts, seemingly for informative purposes.

But moving away from the Spanish-language books, it is easy to notice  some names again and again, with Christine Nöstlinger and Enid Blyton being particularly ubiquitous, and there is a stunning variety of illustration techniques and book designs. Even without being able to compare the contents of that chaotic Babelesque army of children’s books, nosing through the stacks highlights the cultural and social ingredients that go into defining what makes an edition appropriate or appealing for children. I think my 22 year-old self would have regarded this collection as Gringotts, minus the gnomes, so I really hope it sparks at least a handful of research projects on comparative literature and translation! Regardless of the languages you speak, there is bound to be something for you. And, you know, there’s always Enid! 

- Paula Pintos 

If you'd like to find out more about the Seven Stories Collection, then 

email: collections@sevenstories.org.uk or phone: 0191 495 2707 or comment on this blog.

All About: Rabbits

This month our feature animal is a particular favourite of this blogger*, we are going to be raving about rabbits! We will again, take a look at an illustration, archival item and a book to explore three very different elements of our collection.

The Illustrated Edition of Watership Down by Richard Adams, illustrated by John Lawrence, (Penguin Books/Kestrel Books, 1976), and Watership Down: an exhibition catalogue, (Henry Sotheran Ltd., 1982)

We could hardly start an exploration of rabbits in children's books with any other story, although through these books we discover Watership Down almost didn't get published, having been rejected by 4 publishers and 3 literary agents! This is a beautiful edition, created 4 years after its original publication in 1972, with John Lawrence illustrations in pen and ink with colour wash, and a fold out map of the warrens depicted in the story. 

This wonderful, and at times harrowing, book follows the fortunes of a band of rabbits on the edge of the imminent destruction of their home. There is a wonderful preface which really captures the spirit of the book:

 'This is a book about rabbits – real rabbits who act throughout in accordance with real rabbit behaviour and instincts. From the very first page, the reader enters the rabbit world completely, seeing things through their eyes, smelling the scents of the countryside as only an animal living in the wild can, living their terrors and their triumphs with them.'

We also discovered a thirty year old exhibition catalogue, with detailed descriptions of the all the material displayed in a special ten year anniversary exhibition of Watership Down. It has a brilliant foreword by Adams, shown below. Although we don't share this opinion of early manuscripts(!), it is fascinating to know how some authors perceive their pre publication material. At the time of writing Watership Down, Adams was a member of the British Civil Service, possibly where he got his desire to always keep letters, no matter what.

'I have never bothered much about the manuscripts…of my books.  As far as I’m concerned, they are first scratchings, full of faults, and nowhere near so exciting or satisfying as a copy of the end-product, the book…..There is a paradox here.  One throws away drafts once they’ve been typed and submitted.  One never throws away letters: one files them.  This is why all the original letters of rejection and so on relating to ‘Watership Down’ have survived intact, when they might have been expected, I suppose, to have been torn up in a rage.'

Richard Adams Watership Down: an exhibition catalogue, 1982

These books are held within the Kaye Webb Working Library collection, which runs to a staggering 2'346 books. Webb was the Editor of Puffin books during the 1960s and 70s, exerting a major influence of children's books publishing, and it is fantastically useful to have her library here at Seven Stories to complement her archive. If you would like to find out more about Kaye Webb, search the blog or click here or here.

Dummy book and wood engraving print by John Lawrence, for Rabbit and Pork (Hamish Hamilton, 1975)

During the early 1970s, John Lawrence must have spent a fair amount of time drawing rabbits, as the second item in this months series is also John Lawrence artwork! These fantastic illustrations for this unusual story showcase his distinctive engraving style, and are quite different from the above pen and ink illustrations for Watership Down. Held in the collection is a copy of the dummy book, and two final black and white prints. The story follows the adventures of our heroes, Rabbit and Pork, including various criminal activities, but all told in the format of descriptive cockney rhyming slang!

In the above image, the change from dummy book to final artwork style is quite dramatic. We have many examples of dummy books within the collection, and this is a particularly well detailed one, in full colour throughout, suggesting it was possibly created later in the process, and near to having the final story. In the printed book, the story remains mostly faithful to the dummy, although there are frequent changes in page layout, possibly due to the change in medium from painting to wood engraving. 

The John Lawrence Collection held at Seven Stories shows a wide variation in his artwork style, from pen and ink drawings, watercolour, to layered wood engravings. Amongst several other books, we hold work by Lawrence for three Robert Westall titles (happily complementing our large Westall Collection), two books with Philip Pullman (Lyra's Oxford  and Once Upon a Time in the North, also complementing our Pullman Collection, which holds material for other books in the Northern Lights universe), and our newest acquisition - Wayland, written by Tony Mitton (for which we also have ANOTHER complementary collection of the work of Tony Mitton, including two notebooks in which he wrote the text for this book).

Also, for those who haven't yet twigged, 'rabbit and pork' is cockney rhyming slang for 'talk'!

Correspondence between Treld Bicknell of Pan Books, and Faith Jaques, 1981 and 1982. 

Today's final example is taken from the archive of Faith Jaques, a dedicated illustrator with a long career in children's books. Here we have two (of several) letters between herself and her editor, Treld Bicknell of Pan Books, throughout the early 1980s. They refer to Jaques' new illustrations for a collection of Little Grey Rabbit stories by Alison Uttley, Tales of Little Grey Rabbit. They had originally been illustrated by Margaret Tempest, but had been out of print for some time. A note contained in one of the books in our collection tells us that the original artwork by Tempest had been lost, and the original printings weren't suitable for reproduction, being too 'dingy' to compete with other children's books on the market at the time. The tales contain - The Squirrel, the Hare and the Little Grey Rabbit, How Little Grey Rabbit Got Back Her Tail, The Great Adventure of Hare and The Story of Fuzzypeg the Hedgehog. All these stories were originally published between 1929 and 1932, and are amongst Uttley's most well known books.

What comes across very clearly in the letters above is Jaques commitment to securing better rights for illustrators, particularly around image copyright. She has obviously written to the publisher to confirm she will be credited appropriately, and be given the right copyright line in the new editions. Sometimes illustrators would not be credited at all, or not be paid lending fees from libraries. It is also interesting to read that she is confirming her rights to sell the artwork from the book; for many years some publishers kept the original works of art themselves. Later in the series of letters, ironically, it turns out that there have been issues returning the artwork, and she only just received her work back in February 1983, two years after originally sending it. It is also interesting to note that over time, Tempest's original illustrations of the stories have been lost completely (if anyone does know of their whereabouts, it would be fascinating to hear!).

The Faith Jaques Collection also comprises a beautiful collection of printed books, her working reference library with many much older than our usual collecting period. We also hold illustration work for more than 50 of her books, varying between final illustrations, alternative illustrations, proof copies, dummies and sketches. These include original alternative drawings for the first UK edition of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The archive also holds a series of correspondence and notes about the campaign for Public Lending Rights in libraries, and a small amount of personal papers and ephemera. 

If you'd like to find out more about the Seven Stories Collection, then 

email: collections@sevenstories.org.uk or phone: 0191 495 2707 or comment on this blog.

*Full disclosure, I have two wonderful, and slightly pesky, rabbits - Mac and Horatio!