A Child's Midsummer Night's Dream
The object selected for our group, An Illustrated Children’s Version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, is a delightful edition of the play that includes both illustrations and large font, perfect for a pint – sized reader. Scholars speculate the play was written in either 1595 or 1596, when Shakespeare was either thirty-one or thirty-two years old. This edition of the play was originally published by FREEMANTLE & Co (217 Piccadilly MCMI – London) in 1901 and printed by Ballanfune, Hanson & Co, Edinburg & London. There is an introduction to the book by Mrs. Herbert Railton, who was also the illustrator of the book.
The book itself is light blue and worn – looking. It is obviously well loved, as many children throughout the years have enjoyed it. It has simple binding the pages have stuck well to, proving it is made out of good quality material. The page edges are frayed and uneven and many of the pages are yellow. However, the lettering of the book is perfect condition and the font is large. The illustrations are perfectly preserved as well. The illustration on the front cover of the book, a fairy sitting on top a mushroom, is also in perfect condition and is traced by gold coloring.
The book was intended for children, as the title page mentions, “Specially decorated throughout for children.” We are not entirely sure who first acquired the item and remained in possession of the book, as it is not specified anywhere throughout its pages. The book was acquired from Clarence J. Laughlin, who is a well-known New Orleans photographer who was also a book collector. The LSU Hill Library purchased his collection of about 40,00 books in 1986, a few years after his death. One of Laughlin's areas of collecting was Victorian children's literature and fair books, which explains the reason for Laughlin owning this illustrated children's version of A Midsummer Night's Dream. The book, we are assuming, must be quite rare and has been treated very well throughout the years.
The relationship the book has to our class is that we read A Midsummer Night’s Dream a few weeks ago. The book represents Shakespeare well through its lovely illustrations that convey much of the emotions of his characters, as emotions are very prevalent throughout this particular play. This book treats its content with the utmost respect and dignity, as the illustrations are well drawn, tastefully done, and spaced throughout the book well. The way the illustrations are drawn compliment Shakespeare’s writing, as they are passionate and visually – striking, much like A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
The object selected for our group, An Illustrated Children’s Version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, is a delightful edition of the play that includes both illustrations and large font, perfect for a pint – sized reader. There are well - drawn illustrations of the main characters and fairies sprinkled throughout the book and the title page mentions, “Specially decorated throughout for children”. We choose to interpret our object in the form of a diorama because we believe this represents the fun and playful nature of our book.
We choose to interpret our object in the form of a diorama. We utilized fake flowers, spray paint, cotton balls, butterfly figures, and illustrations copied from the book to decorate the scenes. We decided to depict three scenes with our boxes. In the first box we created two night scenes: one of Lysander, Hermia, Demetrius, and Helena arguing in the wood, and the other of Titania doting on Bottom with her fairy attendants. In the other, smaller box we placed the celebration scene of Titania and Oberon reuniting after their argument, surrounded by fairy attendants. We spray painted the first box dark blue to represent the night scene and the second box light blue to represent the day scene. We used the cotton balls to create clouds and add a bit of whimsical nature to the scenes. We used fake flowers, moss, and butterfly figures to create the illusion of a woodland scene. The beautifully drawn illustrations of Oberon, Titania, Hermia, Lysander, Helena, Demetrius, and Puck, (that we copied and printed from the book) all aid in bringing a touch of the book to life. The illustrations represent the emotions of the characters very well and we thought by adding these to our diorama this would aid in painting a more realistic picture of the scenes rather than using clay figures or puppets. These illustrations add a dimension of realism and beauty that often expression–less clay figures or puppets would not be able to achieve.
We hope the viewer will take away a more lighthearted, playful, and imaginative way of viewing A Mid Summer Night’s Dream through our diorama, as it is based off a children’s version of the play. Children often see the world in sweeter and more innocent terms. We hope that the viewers of our creative piece will see the beauty and strikingly visual elements of the play, such as the woodland scene, illustrated characters, and fairies, through a child’s eyes.
