Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v2.djvu/424

 408 Books for Children Howard Pyle also did work of distinction in this field, much as- sisted by his eccentric illustrations; and his Robin Hood (1883) is capital romance. In nonsense books, the imitators of Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear were many in the last years oif the century; but the best of them, Charles Carryl in Davy and The Goblin (1885), only invite comparison. Somewhat earUer, Lucretia P. Hale in Peterkin Papers (1882) created a new form of nonsense of a more literal sort; and this for spontaneous fun and clever foolishness is remarkable. Fairy tales seem to have no foothold in America — the stories in verse of Palmer Cox, the Brownie books, being perhaps the sole instance the century afforded of nation-wide popularity (and these owing more to the author's illustrations than to the text). For this condition publishers may be somewhat responsible, as they can sufficiently supply the market with uncopyrighted European material for which no royalties need be paid. Less likely to have been discouraged by unfair foreign competition, and cer- tainly in themselves more indigenous, are stories which endow animals with human motives and speech. A local counter- part of European folk-lore is the lore of Uncle Remus, created by Joel Chandler Harris.' He was far more successful than Hawthorne in the setting he gave these tales, which, hke the Greek myths, are the common property of a race; Uncle Remus himself is a fine characterization, well-observed, humor- ous, and full of reverent kindliness. The class of juvenile poetry furnished no writer distinguished by any body of work, but an anthology of high order could be compiled. First in time and perhaps in merit would come a one-poem writer, Clement C. Moore (i 779-1 863). In Decem- ber, 1823, he published A Visit from St. Nicholas, which is unique for its period in being entirely free from didacticism and from laboured inanity masquerading as simplicity; it still remains unexcelled in America as a joyous narrative of childhood. Mrs. Hale's Mary Had a Little Lamb yet gambols in children's hearts — for as inexplicable a reason as much of the mechanical nonsense of Mother Goose. The longevity of jingles has never been an indication of their merit, as witness the permanence of such ditties as Upidee and Good-bye, my Lover, Good-bye. Lucy Larcom and AHce and Phoebe Cary pubUshed books of child- ' See also Book III, Chap. v.