#Mopsa the Fairy

[enchantedbook]

'Mopsa the Fairy' by Jean Ingelow, 1887

[the-blue-fairie]

Children's Book Illustrations that Stayed with Me as a Little Girl (Part 1)

The Piper at the Gates of Dawn illustration for The Wind in the Willows by Mary Jane Begin

Mermaid's Lagoon from Peter Pan by Scott Gustafson

Jean Zallinger's Hook from a Bullseye Step into classics version of Peter Pan. He's certainly not as dashing as Jason Isaacs, and I loved his teeth which I imagined all yellowed and reminded me of a skull. I also imagined his eye gleaming red.

Michael Hague's take on Smaug

Freya's Hall illustration from D'aulaire's Book of Norse Myths. This illustration soothed me and I wanted to be in their company.

And more D'aulaire art, from their Book of Greek Myths, Gaea and Uranus. I LOVE Gaea in particular - the way the river flows through her neck, the way his stars are reflected in the pools of her eyes...

...the birth of Aphrodite... I LOVE the colors here, the oranges and golds that mingle with the blue-green of the sea.

...and Perseus and Medusa. I loved Medusa's design in this book because it felt so unique, not usual depiction I was familiar with and also not Harryhausen's take.

Arthur Rackham's illustration of the third sister's encounter with the human children. This one definitely encouraged my naturist tendencies when I was little lol.

the Asian Lung from Dragonology

Dora Curtis and Diana Stanley's illustrations for a 1964 edition of Jean Ingelow's Mospa the Fairy that I found in my elementary school library - ALL of them - the header for the first chapter always connected with me because it promised wonder just on the edges of our own world, even though it wasn't one of the fabulous color plates...

...an example of which I share here.

(I think I'll continue in Part 2 because this post is getting rather long.)

@ariel-seagull-wings @themousefromfantasyland @thealmightyemprex @princesssarisa @amalthea9 @grctw @brokenwild

[soulmaking]

Jean Ingelow, from "Above the Clouds"

[the-evil-clergyman]

Illustration from Jean Ingelow's Mopsa the Fairy by Dorothy P. Lathrop (1927)

[lepetitdragonvert]

Mopsa the Fairy by Jean Ingelow

1927

Artist : Dorothy P. Lathrop

[quordleona03]

Classic Fantasy in English

250 years, 69 books, 48 writers

Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift - 1726

Fairy Tales Told for Children - Hans Christian Andersen - 1835-1863 tr. Mrs. H. B. Paull 1867-1872

The Water-Babies - Charles Kingsley - 1863

Alice in Wonderland/Through The Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll - 1865/1871

Mopsa The Fairy - Jean Ingelow - 1869

At the Back of the North Wind, George MacDonald - 1871

The Princess and the Goblin/The Princess and Curdie - George MacDonald - 1872/1883

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde - R. L. Stevenson - 1886

The Happy Prince and Other Stories - Oscar Wilde - 1888

News from Nowhere - William Morris - 1890

The Book of Dragons - E. Nesbit - 1901

The Just So Stories - Rudyard Kipling - 19021

Peter Pan - J. M. Barrie - 1902-1911

The Enchanted Castle - E. Nesbit - 1907

Puck of Pook's Hill/Rewards and Fairies - Rudyard Kipling - 1906/1910

Lud in the Mist - Hope Mirrlees - 1926

The Midnight Folk - John Masefield - 1927

Dr. Dolittle in the Moon - Hugh Lofting - 1928

Patapoufs et Filifers / Fattypuffs and Thinifers - André Maurois - 1930/tr. Rosemary Benet 1940

The 35th of May, or Conrad's Ride to the South Seas - Erich Kästner - 1931, tr. Cyrus Brooks 1934

Jirel of Joiry - C. L. Moore - 1934-1939

The Tale of the Land of Green Ginger - Noel Langley - 1937

My Friend Mr Leakey - J. B. S. Haldane - 1937

The Hobbit/The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien - 1937-1955

Le Petit Prince / The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 1943 tr Katherine Woods

The Wind on the Moon - Eric Linklater - 1944

Mistress Masham's Repose - T.H. White - 1946

The Little White Horse - Elizabeth Goudge - 1946

Trollkarlens Hatt / Finn Family Moomintroll - Tove Jansson - 1948 tr. Elizabeth Portch 1950

Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell - 1949

Seven Days in New Crete - Robert Graves - 1949

The Borrowers / Afield / Afloat / Aloft / Avenged - Mary Norton - 1952/1955/1959/1961/1982

All You've Ever Wanted / More Than You Bargained For - Joan Aiken - 1953/1955

To the Chapel Perilous - Naomi Mitchison - 1955

Tom's Midnight Garden - Philippa Pearce - 1958

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - C. S. Lewis - 1950

The 13 Clocks - James Thurber - 1950

Round the Bend - Neville Shute - 1951

The Armourer's House - Rosemary Sutcliff - 1951

The Once and Future King - T. H. White - 1938-1958

Candy Floss / Impunity Jane / Miss Happiness and Miss Flower - Rumer Godden 1954 / 1960 / 1961

Sword at Sunset - Rosemary Sutcliff - 1963

Book of Heroes - William Mayne - 1966

Tree and Leaf\Smith of Wootton Major - J. R. R. Tolkien - 1945-1967

The Crystal Cave / The Hollow Hills / The Last Enchantment / The Wicked Day - Mary Stewart 1970-1983

Dragonflight - Anne McCaffrey - 1968

A Wizard of Earthsea / The Tombs of Atuan / The Farthest Shore - Ursula K. Le Guin - 1968/1971/1972

Red Moon and Black Mountain - Joy Chant - 1970

Tom Ass or The Second Gift - Ann Lawrence - 1972

The Dark Is Rising/Greenwitch/The Grey King - Susan Cooper - 1973 / 1974 / 1975

[nyx1111]

Dorothy Lathrop illustration from

'Mopsa The Fairy' by Jean Ingelow - 1920

[sadowlhangout]

Dorothy Pulis Lathrop |  Mopsa the Fairy | 1927

[thefugitivesaint]

'The Queen', from ''Mopsa the Fairy'' by Jean Ingelow, 1919 Source: https://archive.org/details/mopsafairy00inge

[psikonauti]

Dorothy P. Lathrop (American,1891–1980)

From the book “Mopsa the Fairy”,1927

[thechildrensmuseum]

This edition of Mopsa The Fairy was published in 1927 by the Macmillan Company. Jean Ingelow was a well-known English poet and novelist. This children’s story tells of a young boy who discovers a nest of young fairies and they go on adventures together.

[erogeproxy]

Mopsa the fairy illustrations by Dorothy Lathrop <3

[msclaritea]

"...Victorians also created original stories by using the tropes of folklore in innovative ways. From the middle of the century onward, some of the best writers of 19th-century England turned their hand to children’s fiction: John Ruskin (The King of the Golden River,1841), Charlotte Yonge (The History of Tom Thumb, 1855), Christina Rossetti (Goblin Market,1862), Charles Kingsley (The Water-Babies,1863), Lewis Carroll (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, 1865), Jean Ingelow (Mopsa the Fairy, 1869), Edward Lear (Nonsense Songs, 1871), George MacDonald (The Princess and the Goblin, 1872), Mary Louisa Molesworth (The Tapestry Room, 1879), Mary de Morgan (The Necklace of Princess Fiorimonde, 1880), Juliana Horatio Ewing (Old-fashioned Fairy Tales, 1882), Oscar Wilde (The Happy Prince and Other Tales, 1888), Ford Madox Ford (The Queen Who Flew, 1894), Laurence Houseman (House of Joy, 1895), Evelyn Sharp (The Other Side of the Sun, 1900), Rudyard Kipling (Puck of Pook’s Hill, 1906), J. M. Barrie (Peter Pan in Kensington Garden, 1906), Edith Nesbit (The Enchanted Castle, 1907), and Kenneth Grahame (The Wind in the Willows, 1908).

Chances are that unless you’ve done more reading than most in the field of Victorian literature, you’re probably more familiar with the men on the list above than with the women (with the possible exception of Christina Rossetti or E. Nesbit). As I prepared this Introduction, a number of well-read friends asked me if there were any female fantasy writers in 19th-century England, and the answer is: Yes, indeed there were, writers so popular and financially successful in their day that as a group they incited the envy and approbation of many male colleagues. George Gissing’s novel New Grub Street, published in 1891, paints a vicious portrait of an outspoken woman writer, vain and utterly talentless, who is lionized for her children’s fiction while the lives of "real" literary artists fall into ruin all around her.

So if these women were so successful, why are the books by the men above still known and loved by children today while most of those by women are read only by feminist scholars? It's not just gender bias, but also because the tales by 19th-century women can make for distinctly uncomfortable reading. Down through the centuries, fairy tales have often been used as a way of speaking, in symbolic language, about topics at odds with the dominant culture. For Victorian women, it was the totality of their lives at odds with the culture they lived in, hemmed in by 19th-century ideals of femininity, duty, and motherhood. What one finds over and over again beneath the surface of magical stories by Victorian women is anger.

 Queen Victoria's Book of Spells Introduction: Fantasy, Magic, and Fairyland in the 19th Century

[supersuper-fr]

An illustration by Dorothy L. Lathrop for 'Mopsa the Fairy' by Jean Ingelow. Harper and Brotheres. 1927

[lunolunatico]

‘Mopsa the Fairy’ by Jean Ingelow, 1920.

[puredamien]

From the book “Mopsa the Fairy” (1927) art by Dorothy Lathrop [1032 x 1487]