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Relevant passage in the Brothers Grimm original

After the father and mother had grieved some time, they thought that as they could contrive no other way to live they must somehow get rid of their children. One night when the boys were gone to bed, and the fagot-maker and his wife were sitting over a few lighted sticks, to warm themselves, the husband sighed deeply, and said: "You see, my dear, we cannot maintain our children any longer, and to see them die of hunger before my eyes is what I could never bear. I will, therefore, to-morrow morning take them to the forest, and leave them in the thickest part of it, so that they will not be able to find their way back: this will be very easy; for while they amuse themselves with tying up the fagots, we need only slip away when they are looking some other way."

"Ah, husband!" cried the poor wife, "you cannot, no, you never can consent to be the death of your own children."

The husband in vain told her to think how very poor they were.

The wife replied "that this was true, to be sure; but if she was poor, she was still their mother"; and then she cried as if her heart would break. At last she thought how shocking it would be to see them starved to death before their eyes, so she agreed to what her husband had said, and then went sobbing to bed.

Relevant passage from Cruikshank (1853)

One night, after they had said their prayers, and she had put them to bed (and when, she thought, they were all asleep), the father came home and sat down by the side of his wife before the fire, and then began to tell her all the news about the scarcity of all sorts of food, and that he was unable any longer to get bread either for themselves or the children, and that they must, therefore, all starve to death. There was, to be sure, just enough for her and himself for a couple of days, but there was none for the boys; and as it would be a shocking sight to see them all starving, he proposed to his wife that they should take the children out with them in the morning when he went to cut fuel , and that they should leave the children in the great forest.

"No, indeed," cried the tender mother, "I shall do no such thing! If the poor children are to die, I will die with them." But the father insisted that it should be done, got quite angry, and talked so loud that he woke little Hop-o' my-Thumb, who was a very light sleeper, so he sat up in bed and heard all the talk; and after a great deal of crying and opposition, the mother at last consented. . . . — p. 5-6.

Commentary

"Hop-O'-My-Thumb" was originally told by the French author Charles Perrault (1628-1703) in his Tales and Stories of the Past with Morals, subtitled, Tales of Mother Goose. In this fairytale the youngest of seven brothers from a poor woodcutter's family uses his superior wisdom to keep his siblings safe from an ogre with unusual footwear. Toledo Museum, "Story-Telling in Miniature."

Eliminating much of the direct discourse, Cruikshank emphasizes the scarcity of food as only part of the "Count's" motivation; when he had been drinking, remarks Cruikshank, the Countess knew that "it was no use arguing with him when he was in that state" (6). The immediacey of the conversation is emphasized by the illustration six pages earlier in which, underneath the banner The Father proposes to lose the Children!!! the long-haired, bearded father points at the sleeping children. Cruikshank's

illustrations for the first English translation of Grimm's Fairy Tales were praised widely, but his own rewriting of fairytales was criticised, most prominently by Charles Dickens. This was not due to the quality of the illustrations, but because, in line with his temperance beliefs, Cruikshank rewrote aspects of the fairytales to warn the reader against the evils of alcohol. Thus, for instance, the preparations for Cinderella's marriage include the court throwing all alcohol in the palace on a bonfire; and in "Jack and the Beanstalk," the giant is an alcoholic. Dickens, a friend of Cruikshank, was outraged at what he considered to be a betrayal of the essence of fairytales and, in protest he published an essay in his weekly magazine Household Words entitled "Frauds on the Fairies" in protest (1853). See more at: https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/george-cruikshanks-fairy-library#sthash.u2f5mNF3.dpuf — Story-Telling in Miniature.

Alcoholics populate the pages of Cruikshank's Fairy Tales: both the Count and the Ogre in "Hop-o' My-Thumb" are irascible and unreasonable because of two much drinking, and must be mollified by their long-suffering wives.

The brilliant visual satirist George Cruikshank published more than 6,000 graphic works, though he was most known during his lifetime for his book illustrations for popular authors of the day. His artwork included caricatures, social and political satires, pamphlets, drawings, and self-published books. He was self-educated and self-trained as an artist and had a strong and idiosyncratic personality. Later in life he became involved in the Temperance Movement, after which his art became even more focused on social reform.In the mid-1800s Cruikshank rewrote four fairy tales — "Cinderella [and the Glass Slipper]," "The History of Jack and the Beanstalk," "Puss-in-Boots," and "Hop-O'-My-Thumb [and the Seven-League Boots]" — and published them with his illustrations in George Cruikshank's Fairy Library [1853-65].

"Hop-O'-My-Thumb" was originally told by the French author Charles Perrault (1628–1703) in his Tales and Stories of the Past with Morals, subtitled, Tales of Mother Goose [whom Cruikshank depicts in the title-page vignette]. In this fairytale the youngest of seven brothers from a poor woodcutter's family uses his superior wisdom to keep his siblings safe from an ogre with unusual footwear. — Toledo Museum, "George Cruikshank's "Hop-O'-My-thumb." — Story-Telling in Miniature.

Cruikshank may have borrowed the concept of showing different incidents in the plot sequence simultaneously from John Leech in The Chimes (1844), a strategy evident in both Sir Joseph Bowley's​ and Richard and Margaret. In other words, the presentation of images as if they are occurring at the same time rather than sequentially prepares the reader for encountering them in the text, and enables the reader to see the images in a cause-and-effect relationship rather than discretely. In the Cruikshank frontispiece similarly, the father's proposing to lose the children in the woods and his doing so afterwards are presented simultaneously, while the​ other threat to the children, the Ogre sandwiched in between caption banners, leers at the reader from​the upper register, although he makes his entrance much later in the story. If the father had not persuaded the mother to abandon the children in the forest, Hop would not have had to save his brothers from the Ogre, who, like the father, is an alcoholic. Thus, the illustrator's ​ non-sequential​ presentation suggests that the events depicted are causally related, although the reader is not aware of​the connection between the dancing children, the parents in ernest conversation, and the​cannibalistic giant.

The parents surreptitiously depart as the children are focussed on their dancing in the Cruikshank frontispiece. In the telling of the story by the Grimms, the parents slip away as before, but this time Hop's scheme​to lead the boys safely back home fails:

It was not long before they all set out, and their parents took care to lead them into the very thickest and darkest part of the forest. They then slipped away by a by-path as before, and left the children by themselves again. All this did not give Hop-o'-my-Thumb any concern, for he thought himself quite sure of getting back by means of the crumbs that he had dropped by the way; but when he came to look for them he found that not a crumb was left, for the birds had eaten them all up.

The poor children were now sadly off, for the farther they went the harder it was for them to get out of the forest. At last night came on, and the noise of the wind among the trees seemed to them like the howling of wolves, so that every moment they thought they should be eaten up. They hardly dared to speak a word, or to move a limb, for​fear. Soon after there came a heavy rain which wetted them to the very skin, and made the ground so slippery that they fell down at almost every step and got dirty all over.

In the Cruikshank re-telling, the children are not merely gathering wood, a scene which would be rather prosaic (and which would, moreover, seem to be a repetition of the scenario in "Hansel and Grettel"), but are dancing in a ring with Hop in the centre. In other words, Cruikshank reshapes the story for the sake of illustration, and expands this section considerably in order to heighten the suspense:

At length they entered the wood, and the father began chopping away, and the Countess and the children gathering and binding. The Count kept his wife close by him all the time, in order that they might be ready to set off [at] the first opportunity; but whenever he was about to steal away, he always found that little Hop was alongside of him. So, in order to get rid of Master Hop, he told the boys that might leave off work for a little while, and have a bit of play; and he proposed that they should join hands and form a ring, and put little Hop in the middle and dance round him. The boys were all delighted with this game except little Hop, who tried hard to get out of the ring, but his brothers would not let him; and thus, while they were all dancing and shouting, the Count took the opportunity of slipping away, dragging the Countess along with him. The poor mother, although she had determined to go back for the children, was, nevertheless, fearful that they might be lost or come to some harm. So she began to cry, and beg of her husband to let her go back for the children; but he had been draining his bottle, and only gave her harsh words and made her go on quickly, in order that they might get entirely away from the children.

Little Hop-o' my-Thumb's brothers kept on dancing away until they were tired and out of breath, and then they all sat down to rest themselves. But when they looked round and could not see either their father or mother, they jumped up and ran about to look for them; but little Hop stood where he was, for he had noticed which way his parents had gone off. But, oh! when his brothers could not find their parents anywhere, they all looked at one another, and said, "Oh dear, we are lost! oh dear, where's father and mother? Whatever shall we do? — Cruikshank, 8-9.

The cartoonist shows the light and comforting world of the children's home as supported by a grotesque tree with gnarled, twisting arms and two skull-like faces, and a dark, deciduous forest from which the anxious father and reluctant mother (dressed fashionably in the mediaeval idiom as a "count" and "countess") are escaping towards the light at the left margin.

Bibliography

British Library. "George Cruikshank's Fairy Library." Romantics and Victorians. https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/george-cruikshanks-fairy-library

Cohen, Jane Rabb. Part One, "Dickens and His Early Illustrators: 1. George Cruikshank. Charles Dickens and His Original Illustrators. Columbus: Ohio University Press, 1980. Pp. 15-38.

Cruikshank, George. George Cruikshank's Fairy Library: "Hop-O'-My-Thumb," "Jack and the Bean-Stalk," "Cinderella," "Puss in Boots". London: George Bell, 1865.

Howard-Tilton Memorial Library. "George Cruikshank." http://library.tulane.edu/exhibits/exhibits/show/fairy_tales/george_cruikshank

Kitton, Frederic G. "George Cruikshank." Dickens and His Illustrators. London: Chapman & Hall, 1899. Pp. 1-28.

Toledo Museum. "George Cruikshank's "Hop-O'-My-thumb." Story-Telling in Miniature. ​ http://www.toledomuseum.org/exhibitions/online-catalogues/storytelling-in-miniature/118/

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Last modified 15 June 2017