The Cornell Children’s Literature Hall of Fame
Several Cornell graduates, professors, and other affiliates have made significant contributions to the field of children’s literature. Fortunately, we have the papers of some of these authors and illustrators among our collections, which provides a unique opportunity to study the creative process from first draft to published book.
Alison Mason Kingsbury. Illustration no. 16 for The Adventures of Phunsi. Ink and graphite pencil drawing, 1946.
Kingsbury first came to Ithaca from New York City as an assistant artist to Ezra Winter, who had been commissioned to create a mural for the lobby of Willard Straight Hall. She caught the eye of a young Romance Languages professor, Morris Bishop, who climbed the scaffolding to court her as she worked. After they married, she remained active as a professional artist, obtaining her own commission for the World War I Memorial Chapel and illustrating her husband’s books. She also wrote and illustrated a children’s book about an especially fast zebra named Phunsi for her daughter Alison.
Helen Sewell. Dust jacket design for Azor and the Blue-Eyed Cow. 1951. Tempera (?) painting
Helen Sewell (1896-1957) hailed from a talented family. Her sister Marjorie was a prominent landscape architect (Cornell ’17), and her father was the Governor of Guam. She is best known for illustrating Alice Dalgliesh’s The Thanksgiving Story, a Caldecott Honor book, and the original editions of the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder.
60 Years of Charlotte: E.B. White’s Enduring Classic
Elwyn Brooks “E. B.” White (1899-1985), Cornell ’21, was an essayist, humorist and poet, well known for his contributions to The New Yorker and Harper’s Magazine, as well as for being co-author/editor of the best-selling writing guide The Elements of Style. But his most beloved work is a children’s story featuring an unlikely friendship between a pig and a spider. Charlotte’s Web is often cited as one of the best American children’s books of the 20th century. This year marks the 60th anniversary of its publication, and it remains one of the best-selling children’s books of all time.
E.B. White. Charlotte’s Web. Early manuscript draft (pages 1 and 2), circa 1949-1950.
White did a great deal of research on the anatomy and behavior of spiders, and even sent books on the subject to illustrator Garth Williams to ensure that Charlotte would look like an actual Araneus cavaticus (barn spider). Here he sketched an image of Charlotte above an early draft of the first chapter. He modeled his sketch of “Zuckerman’s Barn” after his own farm in Brooklin, Maine, which he and his wife Katharine had purchased in 1933.
E.B. White. Charlotte’s Web. First edition. New York: Harper, 1952.
E.B. White at his New Yorker office with his dachshund Minnie. Photograph, circa 1950.
E.B. White’s Underwood typewriter, circa 1942.
E.B. White. “Death of a Pig.” Manuscript (page 1) of an essay for The Atlantic, circa 1947.
Many readers suspect that the event described in this essay - the illness and death of a pig White was raising for slaughter, and the ironic attachment to it that he developed as he tried to nurse it back to health - provided an inspiration for Charlotte’s Web. Although White denied any direct connection, he did cite his conflicting feelings on the general practice of raising livestock to be “murdered by their benefactors” as a possible catalyst:
“I have kept several pigs, starting them in the spring as weanlings and carrying trays to them all through the summer and fall. The relationship bothered me. Day by day I became better acquainted with my pig, and he with me, and the fact that the whole adventure pointed toward an eventual piece of double-dealing on my part lent an eerie quality to the thing. . . Anyway, the theme of Charlotte’s Web is that a pig shall be saved, and I have an idea that somewhere deep inside me there was a wish to that effect ” (“Pigs, and Spiders,” McClurg’s Book News, January 1953).
Legitimacy for Children’s Lit: Hendrik Van Loon and the First Newbery Medal
Journalist, historian, author and illustrator Hendrik Willem Van Loon (1882-1944) came to the United States from his native Netherlands to attend Cornell. He graduated in 1905, and returned to lecture in European History from 1915-16. He wrote and illustrated several nonfiction books for young readers, describing historical events and people in an engaging, anecdotal style. His most famous work, The Story of Mankind, is just that: an illustrated history of Western civilization from cavemen to post-World War I nation states. In 1922 it received the very first Newbery Medal, an award for the “most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.” This was the first award created to recognize excellence in books for young readers, and heralded a new recognition of the genre as actual literature.
Hendrik van Loon. The Story of Mankind. London: G. G. Harrap & Co., 1922.
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Hendrik van Loon. Sketches and illustrations for The Story of Mankind.
John Newbery Medal. Bronze. Designed by René Paul Chambellan, 1921.
The award was proposed to the American Library Association by bookseller and publisher Frederic G. Melcher, who named it after a prolific 18th century English publisher of children’s books. Melcher was also responsible for the Caldecott Award, which recognizes outstanding American picture books, and for establishing Children’s Book Week.
The Story of Mankind production still photograph. Circa 1957.
Irwin Allen’s film adaptation imagines a tribunal in outer space to determine the fate of humanity. The Spirit of Man acts as mankind’s defense, while Mr. Scratch (a.k.a. the Devil, played by Vincent Price) is the prosecutor. Evidence is presented by both sides in the form of time travel to specific events in history (as described in the book). The film features an eclectic cast of fading stars: the Marx Brothers, Hedy Lamarr, Peter Lorre, Cesar Romero, John Carradine. One or two rising stars are visible too: Napoleon Bonaparte is played by a young Dennis Hopper.
Van Loon’s Story of Mankind board game. Parker Brothers, circa 1931.
Photograph of Hendrik van Loon with his dachshund, undated.
Hendrik Willem Van Loon. “Histoire Fameuse du Sieur Jean Népomuc Pantagruel und von der Hochlöbligen Jung Frau Kunigunde (in 4711 chapters).” Handwritten and illustrated postcards, 1912.
In addition to being a scholar and journalist, Van Loon was a family man who loved writing for children. He wrote and illustrated this serial fairy-ish tale for his nieces and nephew and mailed it to them on a series of 93 penny postcards, one by one.
Gift of Deborah Rogers.