 Cover of the 1918 edition | |
| Author | Hilaire Belloc |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Basil Temple Blackwood |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Children's literature |
| Publisher | The Camelot Press Limited |
Publication date | 1896 |
| Followed by | More Beasts for Worse Children |
| Text | The Bad Child's Book of Beasts at Wikisource |
The Bad Child's Book of Beasts is an 1896 children's book written by Hilaire Belloc.[1][2][3] Illustrated by Basil Temple Blackwood, the superficially naive verses give tongue-in-cheek advice to children. In the book, the animals tend to be sage-like, and the humans dull and self-satisfied.[4] Within the first three months of its publication, The Bad Child's Book of Beasts sold 4,000 copies.[5]
Lord Alfred Douglas accused Belloc of plagiarizing his work Tales with a Twist, which, although published two years after The Bad Child's Book of Beasts, was, according to Douglas, written before Belloc's work.[6]
Belloc's friend Donald Tovey had composed musical settings of some of the verses by 1899 and played them in public.[7] In 1911 Belloc expressed an interest in seeing them published. However, Tovey never got around to producing a final score, and the settings are now lost.[8]
The illustrations have also drawn comparison to the works seen in Dr. Seuss books.[9]
The Dodo used to walk around,
And take the sun and air.
The sun yet warms his native ground –
The Dodo is not there!
The voice which used to squawk and squeak
Is now for ever dumb –
Yet may you see his bones and beak
All in the Mu-se-um.
- ^ Cohen, Charles D. (2004). The Seuss, the whole Seuss, and nothing but the Seuss: a visual biography of Theodor Seuss Geisel. Random House, Inc. ISBN 0-375-82248-8.
- ^ "The Nation Company". The Nation. 65. 9 December 1897. ISSN 0027-8378. OCLC 1643268.
- ^ Pearce, Joseph (2002). Old Thunder: A Life of Hilaire Belloc. Ignatius Press. ISBN 0-89870-942-3.
- ^ The Nation, p. 441.
- ^ Pearce, p. 58.
- ^ Pearce, p. 64.
- ^ Karen Arrandale. Edward J. Dent: A Life in Words and Music (2023), p. 59
- ^ Grierson, Mary. Donald Francis Tovey, A Biography Based on Letters. OUP (1952), p.151
- ^ Cohen, p. 42.