Images of Hop o' My Thumb in Literature

The fairy tale Hop o' My Thumb is moderately popular story written by Charles Perrault t the end of 17th century. It tells how parents led their seven sons (Hop o' My Thumb is youngest and by far the smallest of all) in the wood because they didn't have anything to eat.

There kids find a cottage where a man-eating giant leaves. Invisible threat of hunger and wild animals becomes imminent in the character of the giant. They have to trick him and escape if they want to survive. And they did exactly that. Well, even more - Hop o' My Thumb stole giant's magic boots (seven-league boots) what gives the family a very useful tool. From then on they are more than capable of surviving.

These scenes very often portrayed by illustrators of books for kids. Let's see a few examples:

This is an illustration by Alfred William Cooper (1829-1916) from Our Favorite Nursery Tales, Published by Frederick Warne & Co., in London, around 1883. As we can see, the quality of printing was very good.

Next example is quite different.

This illustration is engraved by legendary Dalziel brothers what means we don't know who made a design, who copied it on the wood block and who engraved it until the 'stamp' was made. It was definitely a team-work, so the authorship of Dalziel brothers is probably the best possible call.

This image of the giant running after the boys belongs to The Old Old Fairy Tales (with additional explanation: with plain and coloured illustrations), published by the same publishing house and printed by Biling and Sons. As we vcan see, the image has many details which are not clearly see because the printing technology wasn't capable of producing such level of quality in 1890 when the book came out.

Next set of pictures is made by Hablot Knight Browne (1815-1892), more known as Boz (his signature is clearly visible), who became immortal by illustrating works by Charles Dickens.

Boz's love for comic elements is obvious. He was a regular contributor to The Punch after all. The book with these illustrations present many other fairy tales and poems illustrated half a dozen other artists. It's titled Child lore (its classics traditions and jingles) and edited by Mrs Clara Doty Bates.

All stories in the book are presented in verse. Published by D. Lothrop & Co., Boston, in 1882.

Elmer Boyd Smith (1860-1943) was an american artist who illustrated Hop o' My Thumb for The Fairy Book (The best popular fairy stories selected and rendered anew) in 1898. This collection was edited by Miss Dinah Maria Mullock (1826-1887) and obviously so successful it was reprinted numerous again and again. Realistic and atmosphere-rich illustrations by E. Boyd Smith very deserve at least part of the credit for this success.

Tired of black and white only images?

Blackie & Son Ltd. produced a series of inexpensive picture books in relatively good quality in first two decades of 20th century. They used the skills of John Hassall (1868-1948) for many of them and the project panned out truly great.

This means we are able to see black and white (line drawing) and color pictures of Hop o' My Thumb in picture books by John Hassall.

If we compared illustrations with comics before, this one looks more like a poster. simple, bold, effective. The trend which will persist for several more decades.