"The Tales of Jemima Puddle-Duck, Two Bad Mice, and Mr Jeremy Fisher," by Beatrix Potter

In which more adorable anthropomorphic animals are, respectively, too foolish to be trusted with important stuff, terribly destructive with no negative consequences, and never going fishing again.



I know, I said we were going to start a new book this time around. And we will! But, after posting the last trio of Beatrix Potter stories, an old college friend of mine specifically requested that I read "The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck," presumably for her children (though I'm not one to judge if not). Heck, why not? And, like last time, since they're so short I tossed in a couple of bonus ones as well. So, Kathy, Miri, and Jack, I hope you enjoy. And the rest of you too, I guess.

The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck

 

Frontispiece - Jemima thought
him mighty civil and handsome.

"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," Part Two

In which Ichabod thoroughly enjoys himself at the party, up until its disappointing end, and has a fateful encounter on the ride home with a horse-mounted man that may or may not have a head.



It's funny, I'd rather forgotten until re-reading this story for the blog that "Sleepy Hollow" doesn't really have any of what you might call "dialogue" in it. Huh.

Illustrations! As last time, the color illustrations are by F. O. C. Darley, 1849, while the black and white ones are by other artists as noted, from 1863.

Oh, first a note for 2:40: the cedar-bird is referred to as wearing a montero cap, which was a type of Spanish hunting cap from the 1600s that has a band going around the crown that can be folded down to protect the ears and/or face, rather like a balaclava.

3:40 - "The Tappan Zee," by John Frederick Kensett

First, the artist. John Frederick Kensett was one of the most well-known and successful artists in the "second generation" of the Hudson River School.  Perhaps his most well-known and longest-lasting contribution to the art world is less his actual work, and more as one of the founders of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Next, the actual illustration. I probably should've mentioned this last time, but the Tappan Zee is a natural widening of the Hudson River (its widest point, in fact). Its name is taken from the Tappan group of the Lenape tribe, though it's unlikely that's what they called themselves, and the Dutch word "zee," meaning "sea." Several times, the story mentions the bluffs along its edge; these are the basalt cliffs known as the Palisades.

More after the break!

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Chapters Sixteen to Nineteen

In which wishes are granted, attempted, failed at, and wasted, at which point our heroes set out southwards and encounter some horticultural resistance.



They're late, but here are all of this installment's Denslow illustrations!

"The Snow Queen," Fourth to Seventh Stories

In which our heroine is assisted by crows, royalty, a most delightful robber girl, a friendly reindeer, and a couple of mysterious ladies to achieve a happy ending, though several deaths are dealt with rather casually.



Couple of things I had to look up: the poor murdered "postilions" are drivers of horse-drawn carriages; the "lath" enclosing the robber girl's wood pigeons is just strips of wood, like that making latticework; the Snow Queen's castle is on Spitsbergen, a very-far-north island belonging to Norway, and to get there they must travel to Lapland, which is a cultural region defined as where the indigenous Sami people live (the Sami were formerly known, and are referred to in this story, as the Lapp people, which is now frowned upon), and ultimately end up in the Finnmark, a very northerly county in Norway. There, they meet the Finn woman, who naturally enough is a member of the ethnic group associated with Finland.

And then of course we have the rest of the Edmund Dulac illustrations from 1911:

2:20 - "She has read all the newspapers in the world, and forgotten them again, so clever is she."

 One of the things I love about this story is how Gerda gets mixed up in what seem to be someone else's fairy tale entirely, like this one about the clever princess looking for a husband who can prove his worth to her, and Gerda's all "Mmhmm, mmhmm, can we get back to my tragic search now?"

12:29 - "'It is gold, it is gold!' they cried."

Also, I just absolutely adore the little robber girl, like how she takes pity on Gerda and thus earnestly promises that she won't let anyone else kill her, but will do it herself, and how she tries to make Gerda kiss one of the pigeons, and how she casually mentions that the friendly, helpful crow is now dead. She's my favorite.

23:51 - "The reindeer did not dare to stop. It ran on till it came to the bush with the red berries. There
it put Gerda down, and kissed her on the mouth, while big shining tears trickled down its face."

I'm a little puzzled about the fact that the text specifically says that the reindeer — twice — kiss Gerda on the mouth, but hey, who am I to judge.

26:50 - "The Snow Queen sat in the very middle of it when she sat at home."

Funny thing, we actually don't see very much of the Snow Queen. Gerda doesn't even meet her. She sure is purty, though. Actually, all of the villains in this story — the hobgoblin, the Snow Queen, the robbers — all get away completely scot-free. And, of course, millions of other shards of that mirror still exist in the world. Ah well.

And that's it for another short story interlude, and Andersen has now taken his place on The Bookshelf. Tomorrow we'll start up a new book, and then we'll resume our regular schedule. Thanks for listening!


If you would like to read along, the text can be found at Project Gutenberg. No reading ahead, though!

Treasure Island, Chapters Thirty-Three and Thirty-Four

In which our heroes get away surprisingly easily, there is much hauling of gold, and the primary villain gets away with it; and in which our narrator swears that there was more of Long John in the book, but maybe he's just thinking about Tim Curry.



Only a few notes for these last two chapters, most importantly dealing with the monetary list Jim makes while sorting out the treasure. My own editions makes a note of "walking the plank," for those unaware of what that means in a pirate context, but oddly neither of the note "pig nuts," because I seriously thought Long John was being a little cruder than he actually was.

Two final N. C. Wyeth illustrations for these sections: first, we've got Jim in Ben Gunn's cave, sorting through the massive pile of coins and loading them into bags, alongside a stack of gold ingots:

11:35 -  "I was kept busy all day in the cave packing the minted money into bread-bags."

Second, we've got the neat endpapers to Wyeth's edition, showing the pirate band charging forth to find the treasure, armed with cutlasses, muskets, shovels, and pickaxes:

And that does now officially close the book on Treasure Island. The whole book is now gathered together on The Bookshelf. Stay tuned for another short story interlude before starting our next book, and thanks for listening!


If you would like to read along, the text can be found at Project Gutenberg. No reading ahead, though!