posted on 09 Oct 2016

My Big Book Of Pictures : Mrs Strang’s Play Books

The majority of us are used to buying board books for very young children but, of course, they are not a new invention. This particular example dates to the late 1920s (although I can’t establish an exact date) and consists of six double-sided thick boards bound together by three large cloth hinges.

The pictures are a mix of colourful scenes – most of which relate in some way to the natural world but all of which feature  very typically characterised girl children of this period as a key part of the subject matter.

The content is a clue to the fact that this particular book was targeted at the parents of young girls but so also is the ‘author’, Mrs Strang. Interestingly enough, Mrs Strang is in fact a fictional construct whose name was invented to differentiate ‘her’ books from those of Herbert Strang who illustrated a whole range of children’s books during the same time period but these were largely aimed at boys.

Just to add to the confusion, Herbert Strang didn’t exist either – the name was the pseudonym of two authors, George Herbert Ely (1866–1958) and Charles James L'Estrange (1867–1947) who specialized in writing adventure stories for boys, both historical and modern-day. So this board book for little girls was in fact put together by Ely and L’Estrange and then marketed under the ‘Mrs Strang’ brand.

It’s value now is largely nostalgic and historical – I doubt that it would have that much appeal to young children today who would, I suspect, wreck this in minutes. The fact that it has survived in this condition is in itself pretty amazing but, for me, it’s also invaluable for the window it opens on the world of the child in the inter-war years.

I think finding copies of this in the sort of condition and that would be something you’d want to keep, is likely to be difficult – although there are other titles in this series as well as the one I’ve highlighted here. What you will have to do is either be prepared to pay a hefty price for one on the second hand market or keep your eyes peeled in places like antique centres or flea fairs. Good hunting!

 

Terry Potter

October 2016