once upon ein time

[kip_w]

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"Es war einmal..."

So begin these fairy tales, retold in German (with the hard-to-read fraktur typeface, no less) by Moritz Hartmann, and illustrated by the great Gustav Dore. I've uploaded the first of these, "das Rothkaeppchen," aka "Little Red Riding Hood" (or cap), to my flickr page.



Along with the full-size fullpage scans, you'll notice I've also messed with some of the illustrations in Photoshop, blurring the engraving lines of selected portions of pictures to hint at what Dore's original monochrome paintings must have looked like before the engraver worked his particular craft on them. I plan to try and scan a story a day, more or less, until the book is finished.

Some terrifying and disturbing images will follow. You might want to park the wee ones in front of a "Die Hard" movie until the series is finished.
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Comments

[letzteschatten.livejournal.com]

a family member read, der struwwelpeter (oder lustige geschichten und drollige bilder), to our daughter. i think she was 3. i had seen these stories and always wondered, "do people read them to their children or do they buy them as historical pieces and read them..ahh...i.e., asterix & obelix?" i laughed outloud because i had the same feeling as you joked about. "hey, let's put on fight club and put the kids down for a nap," that is pretty much what i said.
the board book with all the illustrations, i haven't found online. some of the stories and pictures are here:
http://www.fln.vcu.edu/struwwel/struwwel.html

actually, i'm smelling a new icon here. yes.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, Struwwelpeter, "Little Suck-A-Thumb." I've seen that reprinted somewhere. There was also "Max und Moritz," by Wilhelm Busch, who I used to have in a Dover reprint, until I decided to free up the shelf space. It was a whole volume of Busch's comics, and practically none of them were actually humorous. Max und Moritz trick a miller by cutting a hole in a sack of grain, so he playfully gets even by grinding them up with his mill wheel and feeding them to the ducks. (Since then, I've seen a two-volume set of a whole bunch of Busch's stuff, but always at a price I could resist. The Bibliopath in Norfolk had the pair for years, even after changing management and the renaming of the store to The Bibliophile -- I'd be surprised if they aren't still there.)

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

My goof -- Struwwelpeter and Suck-A-Thumb are different things in the same book. I didn't know there were that many stories. Thanks for the link!

Looking forward to the new icon!

[letzteschatten.livejournal.com]

edward scissor...who?
pretty basic choice, really.

[letzteschatten.livejournal.com]

my husband has read some of the busch, max und moritz series.
he would also like to state for the record that most of the stories in the strewwelpeter book teach valuable lessons (insert dry humor chuckle here) and could be used for peta marketing purposes.
we are often overseas and rummaging in old book shops in small towns. here is your opportunity to post a small wish list, here, where we can access it. if happen upon it, i'll ship it.

thank you for causing us to go to the book shelf and gaze upon this shadow-dwelling books! we didn't stop at struwwelpeter.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

Hmmm! Yes, I'll have to think of wish-list material. I usually just go and browse, but I know there are things I've sought for many moons and all that jazz.