Cautionary Tales for Children

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Cautionary Tales for Children
Cautionary Tales for Children 1907 edition.jpg
Author Hilaire Belloc
Illustrator Basil Temple Blackwood
LanguageEnglish
GenreChildren's literature
PublisherEveleigh Nash
Publication date
1907
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Followed byNew Cautionary Tales: Verses, Duckworth, 1930. 

Cautionary Tales for Children: Designed for the Admonition of Children between the ages of eight and fourteen years is a 1907 children's book written by Hilaire Belloc. It is a parody of the cautionary tales that were popular in the 19th century. [1] The poems are a sardonic critoque of Victorian era upper class society. [2] The work is in the public domain in the United States.

Contents

Illustrated by Belloc's friend from Oxford Basil Temple Blackwood, it is similar in style to The Bad Child's Book of Beasts which had brought Belloc public acclaim and commercial success a decade earlier. The book contains an introduction and eleven tales, all written in rhyming couplets.

Four of the Cautionary Tales were set to music by Liza Lehmann in 1909; [3] the famous contralto Clara Butt sang the piece in a successful tour of Britain in the same year. [4]

Caedmon Records released 'The Bab Ballads of WS Gilbert and Cautionary Verses of Hilaire Belloc', in 1959, on: Caedmon TC-1104. The 'Ballads' were read by Stanley Holloway; and the 'Tales', by Joyce Grenfell.

The British actor Stephen Fry recorded a selection of the verses as an audiobook in 1992, [5] and the American artist Edward Gorey created 61 new illustrations for the book, which were published posthumously in 2002. [6] Pink Floyd writer and singer Syd Barrett used the book as the basis for the song "Matilda Mother" from the 1967 album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn . [7]

See also

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References

  1. The Oxford Companion to English Literature
  2. Tomkins, Calvin (5 September 2017). "The Inexplicably Enduring Appeal of Hilaire Belloc's "Cautionary Tales"". www.newyorker.com. Condé Nast. Retrieved 16 July 2024.
  3. Worldcat: Four cautionary tales and a moral: set for two voices, solos and duets
  4. Old Thunder: a life of Hilaire Belloc, Joseph Pearce, Harper Collins Publishers 2001, ISBN   0-89870-942-3 (p.121)
  5. The Book Depository: Cautionary Verses (Audio cassette)
  6. Goreyography: A review of Hilaire Belloc's Cautionary Tales for Children by Glen Emil
  7. "Syd Barrett Pink Floyd". Archived from the original on 2014-01-28. Retrieved 2014-11-03.