Hypocrite Lecteur: Henry Tufts

Posted on March 6, 2014 by Melissa Watterworth Batt

“He who was born to be hanged would never be drowned” (Tufts 118).

Born to be Hanged. The summation of a damnable life, and thus the best possible prospective title for a book which is instead entitled A Narrative of the Life, Adventures, Travels and Sufferings of Henry Tufts, Now Residing at Lemington, in the District of Maine, In substance, as compiled from his own mouth (1807).

But why Born to be Hanged? Well you see, in his own time, “the name of HENRY TUFTS, the author and hero of the following narrative, [has] been famous, or rather infamous, through most of the United States” (Tufts 3). He was a criminal who eventually retired from crime and prison (by escaping) and wrote this delightful book about it all: within, read of how he and an accomplice were jailed and attempted to “burn a passage through the side of the jail, and so make our escape” (39), accidentally burning down the jail instead; how he “had learnt to disguise a horse so artificially. . . that the owner, to have known his property again, must have had uncommon sagacity” (115); how he traveled, “appearing sometimes in the character of a physician, and sometimes as priest, as best suited my purposes” (114); and how he once stole a horse by “personat[ing] him whom I had long served, vis. the Devil” (229).

Each chapter ends with a small engraving, ranging from the bucolic to the bizarre and horrid. Here are a few samples.

And much, much more! Let me not neglect to mention also that all of this happened during the Revolutionary War: after “the horrors of a civil war had burst forth between England and her colonies in America” (Tufts 101), even Henry takes up soldiering, though enlisting merely seems to him “the best method of supporting self and family, in a way consistent with my beloved ease, and at the same time, as, certainly more honorable than thievish pursuits, though a soldier in fact, may be a thief” (Tufts 101).

Seeing the Revolutionary War from the eyes of one who cared not one jot about it is really a remarkable thing. As noted by his first reviewer, Thomas Wentworth Higginson (some fifty years after Henry’s death), “the lives of vagabonds often afford the very best historical materials” (Higginson 605), and so “in him we have the reverse side of the Revolutionary soldier; he shows vividly the worst part of the material out of which Washington had to make an army” (Higginson 608).

Indeed, what bad material! Henry remains a thief, stealing one night “a couple of dunghill fouls” (Tufts 103), and “a couple of geese more” (Tufts 103) from a local farmer. Perhaps worse, too, dear Henry was not even reliably in the army. He enlisted numerous times, once “under Capt. True for three years” (Tufts 131), but “growing sick, at the thoughts of a three years’ campaign, and having now a convenient opportunity for desertion, I made use of the privilege” (Tufts 132). Additionally, he even engages in undermining the American economy: he meets a British agent, a counterfeiter, who tells him “that, as congress had issued a paper medium to raise armies, and pay off their troops, it imported their adversaries to discredit the currency as effectually as possible” (Tufts 178). He then readily accepts one thousand dollars in counterfeits, finding “not the slightest difficulty in passing them” (Tufts 179).

Thus our clever hero shows us the underside of the American Revolution, yet how much can we really trust a thief, no matter how much he tells us that “I have worn no marks, no disguises, but have appeared in my every day dress” (Tufts 364)? We cannot. Conducting further research, I found only George Wadleigh in 1913 citing an incident of August 26, 1794, in which “Theophilus Dame, Sheriff [of Dover, N.H.], gives notice that ‘the noted Henry Tufts broke out of goal on the night of the 25th.’ He was ‘confined for his old offence, that is, teft,” (sic) and is described as ‘about six feet high, and forty years of age, wears his own hair, short and dark coloured, had on a long blue coat’” (Wadleigh 185).

Such confirmation of Tufts’ prison-breaking is helpful, though this is a lone source, as the only two other accounts I found were completely anecdotal, and possibly based on Tufts’ book alone. Charles Henry Bell writing in 1888 notes that “the jail in Exeter, during the Revolution. . . was not a very safe place of confinement, as was proved by the notorious Henry Tufts and others having made their escape from it” (Bell 256), while, finally, Mary Pickering Thompson writes in 1892 that “the Tufts family. . . has acquired an unenviable notoriety from the exploits of Henry Tufts” (Thompson 257).

Thus, we have very little to confirm Tufts’ actual adventures, so what can we take away? Henry Tufts himself believed his book to be moral, for “the history of the wise and benevolent is beneficial to society. . . [while] that of the vicious, affords also, instruction, shewing the effects of vice and immorality” (Tufts 7). He intends to show his harmful acts truthfully, ab ovo usque ad mala—from beginning to end (Ovid, qtd. Tufts title page)—to inspire moral behavior.

This moral purpose is reinforced by other works published by Tufts’ publisher, Samuel Bragg of Dover. Bragg published the Dover newspaper The Sun, promising “Here Truth unlicensed Reigns” (Nelson 62), and, here in the archives, printed an “Oration, delivered on the fourth of July 1796” by the Rev. Simon Finley Williams, who (ironically, due to Henry) says how in the Revolution, “Heaven seemed to unite all Americans into one soul, except some fugitive Cains” (Williams 9). The ilk of Henry aside, though, these works uplift society, holding up the nation and the law itself, as also in Bragg’s publication of the New Hampshire constitution in 1805, or, even better, The Complete Justice of the Peace, by Moses Hodgdon (1806), which states that “Governments may be predicated and enacted with an intention to cherish and support them ; but unless the magistrates, whose duty it is to execute the laws, feel an attachment to the first principles of their government. . . the laws themselves soon become a dead letter” (Hodgdon, Dedication, n.pag.).

Why then do we have Henry Tufts? Because of faulty magistrates, of course! But I jest. Bragg is involved in society and the law, and so also publishes the autobiography of a criminal, intending to improve society. Yet are we better for it? I delighted in Henry’s crimes. Moral indignation was far from my mind. How could one not be amused by his stealing a horse through drugging its guards, while pretending to be hunting for Henry Tufts, all while actually operating on a bet with the owner? How is burning down the jail, and so needing to stay with the warden’s family, with “thanksgiving being near” (Tufts 42) not amusing? Moreover, though we cannot confirm his adventures, how is a book written by someone in the era of the Revolutionary war not historically significant?

It’s at once historical and ahistorical; moral and amoral; honest and false; and I love it. Perhaps this joy ultimately shows us that we are all somehow like Henry Tufts, for Meliora video, proboque, detiriore sequor (Ovid, qtd. Tufts title page): I see the better, and I approve, but I follow worse.

As a reader, I sure followed Henry Tufts.

Daniel Allie is a senior undergraduate student in English. For his blog series Hypocrite Lecteur he will spend the Spring 2014 Semester exploring nineteenth-century literature in a variety of genres from the Rare Books Collection housed in Archives and Special Collections at the Dodd Research Center.

Works Cited

Bell, Charles Henry. History of the Town of Exeter, New Hampshire. Boston: J. E. Farwell & Company, 1888. Web. Google Books. 1 March 2014.

Constitution and laws of the State of New-Hampshire : together with the Constitution of the United States. Published by authority. Dover: Samuel Bragg, jun. for the State, 1805. Print. [Dodd Center call number: Gaines 865].

Higginson, Thomas Wentworth. “A New England Vagabond.” Harper’s Magazine 76 (1888) 605-611. Web. Google Books. 1 March 2014.

Hodgdon, Moses. The complete justice of the peace. Dover: Charles Peirce and S. Bragg, jr, etc., 1806. Print. [Dodd Center call number: B3029].

Nelson, William (ed.). Documents Relating to the Colonial History of the State of New Jersey, vol. XIX. Paterson: The Press Printing and Publishing Co., 1897. Web. Google Books. 4 March 2014.

Thompson, Mary Pickering. Landmarks in Ancient Dover, New Hampshire. Concord: Concord Republican Press Association, 1892. Web. Google Books. 1 March 2014.

Tufts, Henry. A Narrative of the Life, Adventures, Travels and Sufferings of Henry Tufts, Now Residing at Lemington, in the District of Maine In substance, as compiled from his own mouth. Dover: Samuel Bragg, 1807. Print. [Dodd Center call number: A1838]

Wadleigh, George. Notable Events in the History of Dover, New Hampshire: From the First Settlement in 1623 to 1865. Tufts College Press, 1913. Web. Google Books. 1 March 2014.

Williams, Rev. Simon Finley. “An oration, delivered on the fourth of July 1796. Being the anniversary of the American independence at Meredith bridge.” Dover: Samuel Bragg, 1796. Print. [Dodd Center call number: Gaines P-929]

See Also: Tufts, Tom. “Henry Tufts, Black Sheep of an Otherwise Respectable Family.” Heather Wilkinson Rojo, Nutfield Genealogy. Web. 14 September 2012. Accessed 1 March 2014. [link: http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2012/09/henry-tufts-black-sheep-of-otherwise.html]

More pins added to the Engineering Map of America!

Posted on March 5, 2014 by Laura Smith

Rapallo Viaduct, East Hampton, Connecticut

In the last couple of weeks we have been actively and joyously participating in adding our photographs to the American Experience interactive initiative The Engineering Map of America, at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/interactive-map/penn-engineering/. We just put up more pins of Connecticut’s engineering marvels! These include:

Rapallo Viaduct in East Hampton and Lyman Viaduct in Colchester, both built in 1873 for the Boston & New York Air Line Railroad and now part of the Air Line State Park Trail
Taft Tunnel in Lisbon, the oldest (1837) railroad tunnel in the U.S. still in existence used in its original form
The USS Nautilus, the first nuclear powered submarine in the world, now a historic site at the Submarine Force Museum in Groton
and the steam turbine “Mary Ann” built for the Hartford Electric Light Company in 1901 and installed in their Pearl Street, Hartford, generating station.

Let me know if you can recommend other engineering marvels in the state and I will check to see if we have a photograph in the collection.

Hypocrite Lecteur: The Beggar Boy

Posted on February 25, 2014 by Melissa Watterworth Batt

“The Lady of the Castle!—Are we then to journey through deserts waste! Forests drear!—encounter one-eyed giants—destroy fell enchanters—lay waste castles, where ladies fair, and courtly and courageous knights have for centuries remained immured and spellbound—to come at—THE BEGGAR BOY?” (Bellamy 5).

Thus begins Thomas Bellamy’s The Beggar Boy, and to answer his own question, No. Our Mr. Bellamy was avowed to have “no talent for satire” (Baker 33), but has actually tricked us for a moment, led us on to think this is one kind of tale while it is actually another, a contemporary tale of his own time and place: Bellamy was “born in 1745, at Kingston-upon-Thames, in Surrey” (Baker 31), and had “a mind, susceptible to the pleasures of poetry, and indulging in propensities of innate genius. . .[which could] not long relish the business of common life” (Baker 32).

Bellamy thus became a writer, but “from this prospect of happiness he was summoned by death, after an illness of four days, Friday, August 29, 1800” ( Baker 33). Then was the unfinished Beggar Boy without a home, though Bellamy’s “good qualities secured him many friends” (Baker 33), one of whom—Elizabeth Sarah Villa-Real Gooch—completed the novel out of “a sincere friendship for Mr. Bellamy, which commenced many years ago, and continued, without interruption, to the day of his death” (Bellamy 3).

We are thus left with quite a story: after a complex first volume—in which Dame Sympkins, “the lady of the Castle,” dies; her husband remarries, then dies; his new widow Fanny remarries to a man named Goodwin, whom she abandons, while her brother at sea is thought dead (leading to their mother’s death) and returns after being wrecked on French shores and meeting a sympathizer who knows his mentor Admiral Sydney, who has died; and Sydney’s daughter Louisa has disappeared, so that it is necessary for their friend Mr. Lucas, the curate, to go and find her—“’Well!” says the reader, ‘and now we have travelled through one volume, out of three—and no Beggar Boy!’” (Bellamy 101).

Ay, where is he? “The child of misery is on his way,” the narrator assures us, “refuse not, fair and gentle country-women, your commiseration for—The Sorrows of Alfred!” (101), and so: Louisa Sydney runs away from home, falls into debt, marries, runs away, gives birth to Alfred, and dies; Alfred is abducted by Gypsies, and Martha, his new guardian, rescues him; Alfred is sent to Jamaica; Alfred returns and rescues a rich lady from a band of thugs; the rich lady is employing Martha; knows an admiral M’Bride, who knows Mr. Lucas, and knew Admiral Sydney; Alfred’s father pops up as a robber and M’Bride kills him out of self defense; M’Bride and Lucas get Alfred his grandfather’s estate back, and Alfred marries the rich lady’s daughter, surprising us all that he has now grown up.

The End. Finis. What are we to make of this? If things aren’t already clear enough: this is a moral tale, just as we would expect from a man with “an acute moral perception and an invariable affection for the best graces of the heart” (Baker 33), and so the novel concludes, “thus terminated the sorrows of ALFRED, whose infancy and youth had hitherto been marked by calamitous vicissitudes, resulting from the imprudence of a mother, involving herself in the fashionable dissipations of the time; while his own conduct had invariably claimed the protection of that providence, which pays no respect to persons” (340).

Gentle reader, harken then: Alfred is happy because of “the virtuous principles, and rectitude of heart, which had uniformly distinguished [his] character” (340), securing providence. Note, reader, the constant manner in which virtue is rewarded and vice is punished: coerced into “the abominable vice of drunkenness” (252), “[Alfred’s] ruin was accomplished and inevitable” (251): he is conscripted against his will, and sent to Jamaica. Such incidents abound throughout, echoing similar sentiments towards drink in American pamphlets found in our archives: “The Advantages and Disadvantages of Drunkenness” (1821), says “if you would effectually counteract your own attempts to do well, be a Drunkard ; and you will not be disappointed” (Collins 3); Nathaniel Gage’s “An Address on Intemperance. Pronounced at Nashua Village, N.H. April 4, 1829,” warns that “intemperance is destroying the fruits of intelligence, the strength of the people” (Gage 12).

So always in moderation, reader. Note, too, though, Bellamy’s main message, on providence. Providence is the unseen force guiding the novel, illustrated as both human and divine. At some point in the history of our volume, a reader highlighted the passage “alas! My friend, we are apt to murmur at the painful events which nature, in its appointed round, is sure to produce” (Bellamy 65), lamenting cruel fate, yet for Bellamy, providence can be secured through moral action. Alfred behaves well, and is so rewarded. Yet his fortune is due mainly to the people around him acting providentially on his behalf, making providence non-divine: Admiral M’Bride works to get Alfred his inheritance, and explains to others “that Alfred should remain ignorant of the object of the present journey, in case it should prove fruitless of any good to that young man” (Bellamy 297), personally enacting providence in Alfred’s life.

Bellamy’s moral? A sort of golden rule: do well unto others, and others will do well unto you, or, perhaps simply do well to yourself, and others will do well unto you. Take this away if you will, but I take away something more: a novel that through its haphazard plotting enacts its moral, and so a deeper understanding of the form of the moralistic novel, and an appreciation for their apparent absurdity; a closer look at more popular writing of this time period, from a forgotten novelist; and some perspective on the concerns of the time. And what a story! There may be no Deserts Waste! Forests Drear! Fell Enchanters! Castles! or Knights and Ladies! yet where else can you find a story where two ostensible protagonists die within the first ten pages; where our real protagonist shows up late; is kidnapped repeatedly; and can cross the Atlantic and come back in the space of ten pages as if nothing happened?

I think it’s safe to say, only in The Beggar Boy.

Works Cited

Baker, David Erskine. “Bellamy, Thomas.” Biographia Dramatica: or, a Companion to the Playhouse. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, et al. 1812. 31-33. Web. Google Books. Accessed 16 February 2014.

Bellamy, Thomas. The Beggar Boy: A Novel. Alexandria: Cottom and Stewart, 1802. Print. [Dodd Center Call Number: A619]

Collins, F. “The Advantages and Disadvantages of Drunkenness.” Cambridge: Trustees of the Publishing Fund, 1821. Print. [Dodd Center Call Number: WHV 25]

Gage, Nathaniel. “An Address on Intemperance. Pronounced at Nashua Village, N.H. April 4, 1829.” Dunstable: Thayer &Wiggin, 1829. Print. [Dodd Center Call Number: WHV 56]

Our traveling exhibits are on the road!

Posted on February 20, 2014 by Laura Smith

Our two traveling exhibits are now on view at other venues! Here’s where you can visit them:

Workers at Play is now at the Noah Webster House in West Hartford until mid-June. You can visit them at 227 South Main Street, West Hartford, and at http://www.noahwebsterhouse.org/

All in a Day’s Work: Images of Women in Connecticut Industry, is at the Discovery Museum and Planetarium in Bridgeport until mid-July. You can visit them at 4450 Park Avenue, Bridgeport, and at http://www.discoverymuseum.org

And you can always visit both exhibits online at http://doddcenter.uconn.edu/asc/exhibits/workersatplay/index.htm and http://doddcenter.uconn.edu/asc/exhibits/days_work/index.htm

Are you interested in showing either exhibit? There is no charge to rent the exhibits. Please contact Laura Smith at laura.smith@lib.uconn.edu to make your reservation.

We’ve added more pins to the Engineering Map of America!

Posted on February 20, 2014 by Laura Smith

We’ve been busy this week adding “pins” of photographs from our collections to the Engineering Map of America, created by the people at American Experience to coincide with Tuesday’s documentary “The Rise and Fall of Penn Station.” Check out the latest here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/interactive-map/penn-engineering/

The latest pins we put up include:

The Cedar Hill Rail Yards in New Haven, Connecticut, which served four divisions of the New Haven Railroad and was the last stop of the rail line’s electrified zone along the Connecticut shoreline
The Middletown Swing Bridge over the Connecticut River, built for the Air Line Division of the New Haven Railroad in 1907
The Almyville Lenticular Bridge in Plainfield, built in 1886 by the Berlin Iron Bridge Company
The Devon Bridge, a railroad bridge over the Housatonic River between Milford and Stratford, Connecticut, which runs adjacent to Interstate 95 (a big thank you to David Jacobs, a doctoral candidate here at UConn, whose dissertation is on the bridge and who critiqued the write-up and provided the photograph)
and the Windsor Locks Canal.

You can read about the pins we put up earlier this week in this blog post: https://blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu/archives/2014/02/17/archives-special-collections-participates-in-pbs-american-experiences-engineering-map-of-america/

We’re having a great time pinning the photos and hope you’re having a great time reading about them! Please contact Laura if you have any ideas of other important engineering feats in the state.

Archives & Special Collections participates in PBS American Experience’s Engineering Map of America!

Posted on February 17, 2014 by Laura Smith

Lock 12 of the Farmington Canal, in Cheshire, Connecticut, 1992

We were recently contacted by the coordinator of the Engineering Map of America, an initiative of PBS American Experience and WGBH in Boston, to partner with them on adding photographs in our collection of engineering marvels — scientific and technological innovations in Connecticut and the region. The Engineering Map of America, at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/interactive-map/penn-engineering/, invites viewers to “explore America’s greatest engineering feats” through this interactive map. It’s a great initiative and we’re happy and honored to contribute our photographs to this resource.

PBS is coordinating this map with the showing of The Rise and Fall of Penn Station, a documentary about the legendary railroad station in New York City, on most PBS stations on Tuesday, February 18. The documentary will show at 9:00p.m. locally.

The map is powered by history pin and shows a Google map overlaid with the photographs. Some of the pins we’ve already placed on the site are:

The Cos Cob Power Plant in Greenwich, Connecticut, the first power plant built solely to provide electricity to a railroad, the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad which was an innovator in railroad electrification of its tracks in 1907.
Lyman Viaduct in Colchester, Connecticut, a 1100 feet high railroad trestle built in 1873 for the Boston & New York Air Line Railroad
A streetscene in New Haven, Connecticut, highlighting the overhead telephone wires, to illustrate the accomplishment of the The District Telephone Company of New Haven (later the Southern New England Telephone Company) as the first public telephone exchange in the world (not just in Connecticut. Not just in the United States. IN THE WORLD) in January 1878.
Hell Gate Bridge which spans the East River between Astoria, Queens, and Manhattan’s Wards Island in New York City, built in 1916 to connect the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad and the Pennsylvania Railroad.
The Shepaug Valley Railroad Tunnel in Washington, Connecticut
and Lock 12 of the Farmington Canal, in Cheshire, Connecticut.

More engineering feats to come! Stay tuned!

Hypocrite Lecteur: Our New Guest Blogger

Posted on February 7, 2014 by Melissa Watterworth Batt

Studying literature means anthologies. There’s no way around it. If you are enrolled in a college literature course, you’ll have an anthology. These are large and heavy textbooks, with thin pages and flimsy covers, so delicate that the pages wrinkle at the touch and the corners crush or bend during normal use.

Perhaps even more fragile, though, are the contents. The canon of British Literature, or of American Literature, or of poetry, or drama, or the short story, will never be the same from one year to another. We still read Samuel Taylor Coleridge in our anthologies of Romantic-era British literature, but where now is Robert Southey, his once more-popular contemporary?

Point is, the canon is always changing. Our nineteenth century canon is different from the twentieth century’s nineteenth century canon. We constantly change our perspective of what literature was in a given time and place. Anthologies reflect current views of a time and place, shaped by scholarship, cultural tastes, and social or institutional values of the time period.

The Rare Books Collection here in Archives and Special Collections does not have this problem. Here are thousands of books, none of which have been placed there by an editorial committee, or singled out to fit a specific idea or interest. Here we have the opportunity to be that editorial committee ourselves, to find our own scholarly ideas or interests, to find what past literature has to offer to us, without mediation or abridgment. Why should we not read The Poetical Works of Joseph Addison (1805), or learn how life is to be lived from John Anstey’s The Pleader’s Guide, A Didactic Poem (1803)? While we are looking more at women writers, why not consider Jenny Fenno’s Original Compositions in Prose and Verse (1803)?

All of these works have something valuable to offer. By engaging in a conversation with the text and by putting the texts in conversation with each other, we can find that value. To the reader these texts may at first seem obscure, irrelevant, or even silly, but the purpose of this blog series is to guide you through this process, to come to appreciate the non-canonical and the forgotten, and to question our assumptions.

Writing in the mid-nineteenth century, Charles Baudelaire wrote the phrase I use now to title this series, Hypocrite Lecteur. In “Au Lecteur,” (“To the Reader”) the preface poem to Les Fleurs du Mal (1857), Baudelaire accuses his readers of a common indifference to art and the world, a lack of critical thought which endangers us all, finally naming the cause of this menace, ennui:

It’s BOREDOM. Tears have glued its eyes together.
You know it well, my Reader. This obscene
beast chain-smokes yawning for the guillotine—
you—hypocrite Reader—my double—my brother! (Trans. Robert Lowell)

Let us take Baudelaire’s warning in hand and question the canon and our own former thoughts. In my blog series Hypocrite Lecteur, I will leave anthologies, leave even Baudelaire, and discover the literarily obscure for myself, on a journey through what the Rare Books Collection has to offer. Over a series of months, I’ll be reading and reporting back.

Come along, this will be fun.

Meet Sandra Horning, James Marshall Fellow for 2014

Posted on February 4, 2014 by Kristin Eshelman

Sandra Horning, of Chaplin, Connecticut, is the author of three children’s books: The Biggest Pumpkin, a picture book illustrated by Holly Stone-Barker and due out later this year; Chicks!, a beginning reader illustrated by Jon Goodell and published by Random House in 2013; and The Giant Hug, a picture book illustrated by Valeri Gorbachev and published by Knopf in 2005. The Giant Hug won several awards and has been translated into Dutch, Italian, Chinese, Korean and Japanese.

Ms. Horning is studying the Papers of James Marshall to support the completion of a new beginning reader with the working title Crab and Snail. She is researching word choice and length, Marshall’s revision process and his creative process from the first idea to publication. This is Ms. Horning’s first of three blog posts in fulfillment of the Marshall Fellowship. Welcome, Sandra!

Blog Post 1: Kids are Really Smart These Days

Most people think of James Marshall as an illustrator and vividly remember his characters, George and Martha, Miss Nelson, and Fox, among others, but I, as a children’s author myself, think of his words and how well crafted his stories are. Since he wrote many of his stories under the name Edward Marshall, there may be people who don’t realize the large number of stories he wrote and illustrated. I’m thrilled to now have an opportunity to research how James Marshall may have created such memorable stories and characters.

As I dig into the collection, which is quite vast, I’ve been looking at story plots and character development, but Marshall’s endings are what keep jumping out. One of the reasons his books can be read over and over again is that his endings are always satisfying and funny. Since I am currently in the midst of writing a beginning reader, for the last few weeks I’ve been closely looking through drafts and dummies of Marshall’s beginning reader stories of Fox. I’ve noted several times how Marshall made a small comment in the margin near the ending: “Funnier ending” and “Make better.” When I compare the dummy to the final version in print, indeed, Marshall has always made a change to a better and funnier ending, just as he noted.

For example, in the story “Monday Morning” in the book Fox All Week, Fox jumps out of bed eager for the school field trip. When he looks out the window it is pouring down rain. He says, “This isn’t funny.” Fox is sure the field trip will be canceled and it will be school as usual. He then pretends to be sick so he can skip school. Reading comics and having his mom wait on him, Fox is having a great time in bed when he hears voices outside his window. The last page of the story reads,

It was Miss Moon and the class.

“We are off on our field trip!” called out Carmen.

“A little rain can’t stop us!” said Miss Moon.

Marshall had many different lines ending the story:

“That’s just dandy!” said Fox.

And Fox felt just awful.

Fox couldn’t believe his ears.

“I could just die,” said Fox.

James Marshall dummy pg. 10. All rights reserved.

A page from the dummy for the story “Monday Morning’ in James Marshall’s book Fox All Week. Note “funnier ending?” in the margin above the number 10. (James Marshall Papers:Box 7:Folder 131). All rights reserved. No reproduction of any kind allowed.

The ending in the final version is “This isn’t funny,” said Fox. It is simple and subtle, and it ties into the beginning of the story, repeating Fox’s line when he thought the rain canceled the trip. It lets the reader know how Fox felt without saying it. It assumes the reader has the ability to get the understatement and humor.

In another story, “The Friday Dinner,” from the same book, Fox’s mother burns the dinner. Fox steps in and announces that he will make dinner. Then he clears everyone out of the kitchen. The reader hears Fox banging pots and pans. The last page of the dummy reads,

When dinner was served it was simply delicious.

The last page as it was printed reads:

Finally dinner was ready.

“Fox,” said Mom, “These peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are simply delicious.”

The dummy ending was funny, but it is much funnier to have Mom refer to the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Plus, the illustration might not be able to make it clear that it is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Again, as in the first example, the child reading it has to understand the humor: you don’t need pots and pans to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

In my final and favorite example, “Tuesday’s Lunch,” again from the same book, Fox and his friends are sick of the tuna sandwiches their mothers give them for lunch. They decide to teach their moms a lesson and throw the sandwiches over the schoolyard wall. Of course, later they are hungry and unhappy. As they leave school, the dummy with “Make Better” in the margins ends with the following:

On the way home Fox and his friends met a poor old cat.

“You look hungry,” said the cat.

“Would you like a tuna sandwich?”

“Oh yes!” They cried.

And they ate every bite.

James Marshall dummy pg. 16. All rights reserved.

A page from the dummy for the story “Tuesday’s Lunch” in James Marshall’s book Fox All Week. Note the “Make better” at the end of the text. (James Marshall Papers:Box 7:Folder 131). All rights reserved. No reproduction of any kind allowed.

Below is the ending in print:

On the other side of the wall they met a poor cat.

“I’m so happy,” said the cat.

“A nice lunch fell from the sky.”

“Three tuna sandwiches?” said Fox.

“Gosh,” said the old cat. “Kids are really smart these days.”

Once again, Marshall successfully made a better and funnier ending, one with additional meaning. Fox and his friends were not too bright when they decided to throw out their tuna sandwiches. The line “Kids are really smart these days.” adds an ironic note to the humor.

So what is the secret behind his perfect endings? I think the secret is that Marshall trusts that the child reader is intelligent enough to understand the humor without spelling it out in a didactic way. Children love to be in on a joke. Books with great endings are the books children remember and read again. This has led me to review some of my unpublished manuscript endings. Reading through them, I am taking a lesson from James Marshall and writing “Make better” and “Make funnier” next to my endings that need it! And, of course, I will keep in mind what Marshall himself stated: “Kids are really smart these days.”

Congratulations to the 2013 National Champions…

Posted on February 3, 2014 by Betsy Pittman

from those who played before. The University of Connecticut field hockey team defeated Duke by a score of 2-0 to earn the program’s third National Championship at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va. The program also won championships in 1981 and 1985. Women’s athletic teams in the early years of the institution established the foundation on which today’s champions have continued to build. Congratulations to all and Go Huskies!

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ALA announces 2014 youth media awards

Posted on January 30, 2014 by Kristin Eshelman

See the full story at http://www.ala.org/news/press-releases/2014/01/american-library-association-announces-2014-youth-media-award-winners. Congratulations to all, especially NCLC donor and CT Children’s Book Fair friend Mo Willems, for his Geisel Honor Book award for A Big Guy Took My Ball, published by Hyperion Books for Children. Other past participants in the CT Children’s Book Fair to win major awards this year are Holly Black, for Doll Bones, published by Margaret K. McElderry Books, a Newbery Honor Book; Aaron Becker for Journey, published by Candlewick Press, a Caldecott Honor Book; Rita Williams-Garcia for P.S. Be Eleven, published by Amistad, the Coretta Scott King Book Award for Authors; Bryan Collier for Knock Knock: My Dad’s Dream for Me, published by Little, Brown and Company, the Coretta Scott King Book Award for Illustrators; and David Levithan for Two Boys Kissing, published by Alfred A. Knopf, a Stonewall Book Honor Award. Fantastic!

2014 Caldecott, Newbery Winners announced!

Posted on January 27, 2014 by Kristin Eshelman

Congratulations to Brian Floca, winner of the 2014 Caldecott Medal, for his wonderful book Locomotive, which he wrote and illustrated, published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers. The three Honor books are Journey, written and illustrated by Aaron Becker, published by Candlewick Press ; Flora and the Flamingo, written and illustrated by Molly Idle, published by Chronicle Books LLC; and Mr. Wuffles, written and illustrated by David Wiesner, published by Clarion Books.

The winner of the 2014 Newbery Award is Kate DiCamillo for her Ulysses: The illuminated Adventures, published by Candlewick Press. The four Honor books are Doll Bones, written by Holly Black, published by Margaret K. McElderry Books; The Year of Billy Miller, written by Kevin Henkes, published by Greenwillow Books; One Came Home, written by Amy Timberlake, published by Alfred A. Knopf; and Paperboy, written by Vince Vawter, published by Delacorte Press.

Congratulations to all!

Winter Wonderland

Posted on January 27, 2014 by Betsy Pittman

Winter in Storrs can be quiet and tempestuous, sparkling and drab, fun and dangerous, in turn or all at once. In all its phases, winter has a beauty all its own, despite the many inconveniences it may bring. Images from the University Photograph Collection illustrate Winter in Storrs in all its glory.

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