The Shaw Collection
The Shaw Collection consists of thousands of volumes of English and American poetry, criticism, biography, and reference. It is especially rich in the works of those who have become known as poets of childhood. The collection includes works by Charles and Mary Lamb, Robert Louis Stevenson, Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, William Wordsworth, and number of illustrators, including Randolph Caldecott, Walter Crane, Kate Greenaway, Maurice Sendak, and Dr. Seuss.
The collection was assembled as the lifetime leisure activity of the donor, John Mackay Shaw (1897-1984), who brought his collection to Florida State University in 1960 upon his retirement. Mr. Shaw served as the voluntary curator of the collection until 1980, and continued working with the collection until his death in 1984. Since then, his daughter, Cathmar Prange, has served as the voluntary curator, working in tandem with the Special Collections librarians.
An annotated multi-volume guide to the collection, entitled Childhood in Poetry, and a variety of short-title catalogs featuring individual authors and topics are available for research purposes.
(Excerpted from Special Collections at Florida State University. Tallahassee, FL: Robert Manning Strozier Library, 1985.)
Guide to the Exhibit
1. Comenius, John Amos. Orbis Pictus of John Amos Comenius. Syracuse, NY: C. W. Bardeen, 1887 [Facsimile] [Detroit, MI: Singing Tree Press, 1968].
Often identified as the first children's picture book, this book presents the alphabet in Latin and in English. The edition on diplay is a reprint of a reprint.
2. Wither, George. A Collection of Emblemes, Ancient and Moderne. London: Printed by A. M. for Robert Allot, 1635.
This book features lessons for young and old, including one about the necessity of magistrates in civilized society. The caged cat represents a variation on the old saying "When the cat's away, the mice will play."
3. Bunyan, John. Divine Emblemes or Temporal Things Spritualised. London: Bickers and Son, ?.
Not intended strictly for children, this book depicts spiritual messages in the natural world. One such "lesson" comes from a conversation between a spider and a sinner.
4. Ford, Paul Leicester, ed. The New England Primer. New York: Dodd, Mead, and Company, 1897. [Facsimile]
Designed by Puritans for children in the New World, this book is often grim and severe. Witness the verse that accompanies the letter "Y": "Youth forward slips / Death soonest nips."
5. Belloc, Hilaire. Matilda Who Told Lies and Was Burned to Death. Illus. by Steven Kellogg. London: Frederick Warne, 1977.
Here we see a juxtaposition of sensibilities: Belloc's (late nineteenth century) stern warning is somewhat offset by Kellogg's (late twentieth century) more playful drawings.
6. Blake, William. Songs of Innocence. London: Ernest Brown, Ltd., 1926. [Facsimile]
Blake skillfully interweaves pictures and text in this deceptively simple book of poems. "The Lamb" is one of the best known of Blake's works, with appeal for both children and adults.
7. Rossetti, Christina. Goblin Market. Illus. by Laurence Housman. London: Macmillan and Company, 1893.
Title pages sometimes merge pictures and text. This title page offers an especially good example of such merger.
8. Carroll, Lewis. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Illus. by John Tenniel. London: Macmillan, 1867.
In this famous example, Carroll's text becomes a picture of the thing it describes.
9. Milne, A. A. When We Were Very Young. New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, 1924.
In "Politeness," Milne uses changing typography at the end of the poem to help convey the child's feelings.
10. Rossetti, Christina. Sing-Song: A Nursery Rhyme Book. Illus. by Arthur Hughes. London: Macmillan and Company, 1893.
Children's books are not all sweetness and light, as is evident in this two-page spread. The broken eggs in the picture on the left parallel the empty cradle in the picture on the right. In the nineteenth century, the death of a child was not an uncommon occurrence.
11. Fisher, Aileen. Do Bears Have Mothers, Too? Illus. by Eric Carle. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1973.
Carle uses collage and layers of colored paper to depict various animal mothers and their children.
12. Greenaway, Kate. Under the Window. New York: George Routledge and Sons, ?.
Yet another example of childhood threats: here Billy is kidnapped by a dreadful old man. The sing-song verse belies the frightening situation.
13. Crane, Walter. The Baby's Opera. London: George Routledge and Sons, ?.
The cover depicts characters from "Hey, Diddle Diddle," a song which oddly does not appear in the book. Compare to Randolph Caldecott's famous rendering of this nursery rhyme.
14. Caldecott, Randolph. R. Caldecott's Picture Books. London: George Routledge and Sons, 1878, ?.
Caldecott offers his version of the Dish running away with the Spoon. The photocopy shows Caldecott's extension of the text, in which he depicts the angry parents and the broken Dish.
15. The Child's Famous Picture Book. London: Ward, Lock, and Company, ?.
This alphabet of beasts, birds, and fishes features intertwining animals and letters.
16. Stevenson, Robert Louis. A Child's Garden of Verses. Illus. by Brian Wildsmith. London: Oxford University Press, 1966.
For Wildsmith, a "Happy Thought" is a world of pictures, where text and pictures are one.
17. Ruskin, John. Dame Wiggins of Lee and Her Seven Wonderful Cats. Illus. by Kate Greenaway. New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, 1928.
In this playful book Dame Wiggins' cats do all sorts of remarkable things, like mending the carpet.
18. Ga'g Wanda. Millions of Cats. New York: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1928.
In this series a kitten is shown drinking milk. Ga'g achieves a sense of movement, almost a cinematic quality, by using the storyboard sequence and arranging it in a downward arc and then an upward arc.
19. Denslow, W. W. Denslow's Three Little Kittens. New York: G. W. Dillingham Company, 1904.
Most famous for his illustrations of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Denslow here gives us his version of "The Three Little Kittens," in which the kittens literally romp through the text.
20. Baum, L. Frank. The Songs of Father Goose. Music by Alberta N. Hall. Illus. by W. W. Denslow. Chicago: George M. Hill Company, 1900.
With "Who's Afraid?" the pictures of witches and goblins clearly contradict the text.
21. Smith, Jessie Willcox. The Little Mother Goose. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1918.
Smith's portrait of Little Miss Muffet.
22. Barrie, J. M. Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. Illus. by Arthur Rackham. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1929.
Here Rackham offers a cut away view of the fairies hiding in the tree.
23. Moore, Clement C. The Night Before Christmas. Illus. by Arthur Rackham. London: George G. Harrep and Company Ltd., 1931.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow literally brings the landscape to life.
24. Seuss, Dr. And To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. New York: Vanguard Press, 1937. [Autographed copy]
On this two-page spread, the text runs into the intersection of Mulberry and Bliss Streets. The photocopy shows Dr. Seuss's autograph and his note to Mr. Shaw.
25. LeSieg, Theo. The Pop-Up Mice of Mr. Brice. Illus. by Roy McKie. New York: Random House, 1970.
The pop-up book is a genre that has always encouraged the reader to interact with the book. Here Eddie's pop bottle can be made to appear full, half full, or empty. [Note: Theo LeSieg is yet another psuedonym that Theodore Geisel sometimes used. LeSieg is Geisel spelled backwards. Of course, the pseudonym that Geisel most frequently used and that most people recognize is "Dr. Seuss."]
26. Lullabies and Night Songs. Illus. by Maurice Sendak. Music by Alec Wilder. Ed. by William Engvick. New York: Harper and Row, 1965.
Sendak chooses the comic book (or storyboard) format to illustrate the song "Go Tell Aunty Rhody."
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