Here's an unusual little project I put together recently. I found an amusing book from the early 1800s and did a silly amount of research about it, and in the end I reprinted not one combination volume but two.
The Butterfly's Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast, by William Roscoe, was unusual for its time in that it did not focus on morals or education--it was just good fun. It describes, in poetry, a party given by a butterfly and a grasshopper. Many of the guests are described in amusing detail; for example, the snail is mentioned as being exhausted after traveling a relatively short distance to attend. It is estimated to have been written for Mr. Roscoe's children around 1802, but it was first published as a poem in November 1806, in both The Gentleman's Magazine and The Lady's Monthly Museum. There are a few slight differences in the poem as printed in each magazine, and the Gentleman's Magazine version is a little closer to the first edition printed as a picture book in 1807.
That first edition has very whimsical illustrations, in which each insect or animal character is represented by both its realistic form and a human-looking figure wearing or riding on the insect or animal. Above is a picture of the tired snail. The book would have originally been sold with a choice of either black and white or hand-colored illustrations, and of course I chose the colored version to reprint.
The human-looking figures appear to represent each character's spirit and personality--in the only sequel I could find that imitated this convention, the 1808 The Butterfly's Funeral, the butterfly herself is shown without a human figure, as she is dead. The Butterfly's Funeral, like many other sequels--The Butterfly's Ball was massively popular and had a lot of imitations--was written by a different author than the original. If it's meant to teach anything, it might be about how to conduct a funeral; that seems like an odd topic for an illustrated children's book, but I guess that would have been a more common part of everyday life in a time with higher mortality rates. More likely it's just a game of imagination, though, like the once-common doll's funeral. Maria Flaxman's illustrations, though not as amusing as William Mulready's from the earlier book, are still charming in their own odd way. My reprint of these two books together can be found on Amazon here, but you can also read The Butterfly's Ball on the Internet Archive here and The Butterfly's Funeral here.
In 1808 The Butterfly's Ball was reprinted with a few additional lines of poetry and other small improvements. This second edition was given completely new illustrations in a more realistic style, also done by William Mulready. These aren't as weird and fun as the earlier ones, but they are pretty. This was the version that was considered the definitive one and reprinted in facsimile in 1883.
When I realized there was an 1810 "sequel" written by the original author, I had to hunt that down and reprint it also, and since it didn't fit with the 1807 illustrations I made a companion volume of the 1808 version with the 1810 The Butterfly's Birth-Day. I can't be completely sure if William Roscoe was familiar with The Butterfly's Funeral, but The Butterfly's Birth-Day certainly makes an interesting contrast with it. Both books are bluntly about death, but instead of describing a funeral The Butterfly's Birth-Day uses the metamorphosis from caterpillar to butterfly as a metaphor for the hope of resurrection. It has only six illustrations, but they are lovely and dramatic. The one below is my favorite, with the children being studied by angels in the same way in which they are studying the caterpillars.
My reprint of the 1808 version of The Butterfly's Ball with its 1810 sequel The Butterfly's Birth-Day can be found on Amazon here.
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