CHARITY SHOP bookshelves yield the most extraordinary gems. You could never go shopping for these books on Amazon or on websites for out-of-print books like Abe Books, because until you see them in front of your astonished eyes, you wouldn't know such titles even existed. For example, the children's book I found about two years ago in a charity shop in Galway, Little Folk in Many Lands.
This book is a small hardback, published by the Edinburgh-based company, Blackie & Son, with a green cover, and inked colour plates. The page with publication date is missing, but a little research on the internet told me it was originally published in 1909. Descriptions of the book on websites where it was offered for sale often included the information that it contained a school prize inscription.
The Publishers’ Note at the beginning of the book explains that “This little book, the first of the series, is meant as an informal introduction to Geography and History for children of about seven years of age. It consists of pictures and simple descriptions of many lands.”
The world in 1909, particularly if you were a British citizen, was a very different place. Since about a quarter of it was ruled by the British, any book for children looking at life in “many lands” was bound to be a telling insight into the British perspective on those lands at the time.
The book starts off in “our island home” of Britain, and then, under the guise of a swan, rather than a plane, starts to travel elsewhere “with a great flapping of wings.”
Ireland, as seen from above, looks like this: “In some parts there are bogs, where the ground is wet and soft. No one can cross these bogs, but the little boys, who live there and know the footpaths.” That’s pretty much it for Ireland, seven years away from the Easter Rising.
France, then as now, has never been a country Britain appears to like very much. For a start, “If you were there,” the book informs us patronisingly with the assurance the only language worth speaking is English, “you could not make out what they are saying, for they speak French.” However, you would definitely know the little boy in the illustration was French, from his “dainty clothes.”
On to “Holland”. “Holland is a damp misty land. But the Dutch women are so fond of scrubbing that their houses are always bright and clean.” And so it should ever be thus: “in Holland all little girls must learn to be good housewives.”
Pre-Revolution Russia is described as “very large, but not very pretty . . . The roads are bad for there is no stone to make them hard. Most of the country people are very poor, and very few can read. They are often dirty and lazy, but they are kind and polite to strangers.”
As to the politics of the time, “The people of Russia are not so free as we are here. They often have to obey rulers who are cruel. Many of the best men in Russia wish to change the laws. But they only bring trouble on themselves.”
In Lapland, a boy herding some reindeer stops to talk to a little girl. “They are not a pretty pair, for the Lapps are short and ugly.” However, there are redeeming qualities. “But they are strong and quick, else they could not live in that cold land.”
Over to the “Cotton Fields of America” which is treated like a separate country by itself, with its own chapter. The opening illustration for this chapter is of five adults and a child picking cotton, while a white man stares at them from his horse. The opening line is, “How busy these black folk are, and how pretty their gay clothes look among the white cotton!” In the next paragraph we learn, “When night comes on, and work in the cotton fields is over, these black folk will have a good time. They love to dance and sing to the music of the banjo.”
The following chapter after that featuring “black folk” features the “Red Indians”. A baby is described thus: “A funny little thing the baby looks, with its straight black hair! The children learn to be brave and to bear pain as if they did not mind it. Some of them have been seen burning their hands for fun, to see who could bear it best! No wonder they grow up to love war.”
When the reader arrives in South America, there are descriptions of “great plains” where boys ride horses to herd cattle. “But when they are not riding, they are very lazy. Like many other folk in South America they like the word ’tomorrow’. For they always put off working as long as they can.”
As for Australia, “It stands there all by itself, like a bad boy who has been put in the corner. Indeed, we used to send our bad men there, to get rid of them.”
There’s not much in the entry on India, apart from stating it is hot, and there are “ten times as many babies as there are in England.” We are told, however, “The people of India have learned many things besides cricket from the British rulers.”
Would you like to go to Morocco in 1909? Not advisable. “It is safer to read about Morocco, than to go and see it. For bands of robbers hide in the hills, eafer to catch any one, who is so bold as to go alone.”
Much better to stay home in Britain, preferably London, where the book begins, and which is described as “the biggest city in the world.” Perhaps the biggest shock in reading Little Folk in Many Lands is realising how much cities worldwide have grown since then. Compared to Mumbai, Seoul, Mexico, Shanghai and Sao Paulo. London now seems a much smaller place than it did in 1909.