Ever wondered what the childhood writing of Dickens, Austen, the Brontës and many other great writers was like? The study of early writing (and art) has been
termed Juvenilia, drawing from the Latin meaning "things from youth". I
have had the privilege of spending a number of years on the Editorial
Advisory Board of the
Juvenilia Press at the
University of New South Wales, in this post I offer a sample of the wonderful work that has been produced, that high school teachers and their students will find fascinating. As students study this largely unknown material, they will gain insights into the work of great writers and perhaps gain inspiration for their own writing.
An interest in Juvenilia
I have written already on this blog before
here and
here that children begin to write from a very young age. While the earliest attempts at writing of our children - even before the age of 12 months - is
often seen as 'cute' and largely unimportant by some parents, many children from a young age develop a desire to do more than simply making their marks on paper;
they begin to play with language and words, often in combination with
their early drawings. Many great writers did, and some of this work survives.
The Juvenilia Press was founded in 1994 by
Juliet McMaster at
the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Its aim was to study Juvenilia and to publish some of the early work of great writers. It moved to UNSW in 2001 when
Professor
Christine Alexander became the General Editor. Professor Alexander is a prominent Australian researcher,
editor and writer on the Brontës and other 19th Century writers,
including their juvenilia.
Every
publication from this not-for-profit press combines the early writing of great authors and a postgraduate or research essay on
the work. These publications represent the scholarship and research of some of the
world's leading professors of literature and their research students. In doing so, they preserve and shine a light on the early writing of great authors as an inspiration to young writers today.
The works published to date
Juvenilia Press has published 66 works since 1994, some of which I reviewed in previous posts (here & here). The writers whose early work has been published include Jane Austen, Charlotte & Branwell Brontë, Louisa May Alcott, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), George Eliot, Margaret
Atwood, Greg Hollingshead, Margaret Laurence, Marjory Fleming, Rudy
Wiebe, Opal Whiteley, John Ruskin, Charles Dickens and many others.
Some Selected Recent Publications
a) Marjory Fleming, 'The Journals and Poems of Marjory Fleming'
A self-confessed "little young Devil" who could throw spectacular
temper tantrums, Marjory Fleming was nevertheless sanctified as "Pet" by
the Victorians for her brief life and winning writings. In her engaging
verse and journals she shares her wide reading, her delight in "rurel
filisity" and her devotion to Mary Queen of Scots and Scottish history.
Edited by Leslie Robertson and Juliet McMaster, with others.
b) Patrick Branwell Brontë
Written at the age of fifteen, The Pirate transports us into the
dramatic imaginary world of the young Brontës, tracing the early career
of Branwell's favourite hero (and later alter-ego) 'Rouge' to
aristocratic demagogue. The young author and his hero both played
pivotal roles in the creation of the Glass Town and Angrian saga.
Edited by Christine Alexander, with Joetta Harty and Benjamin Drexler.
c) Annie and Ida Rentoul, 'Mollie's Bunyip and other Tales'
The early twentieth-century Australian teenagers, Annie and Ida
Rentoul, collaborated as writer and illustrator on a series of tales.
They chose to work in the fairy-tale genre at a time when there was a
demand for such stories to have an Australian character. Ida’s career as
writer, and particularly as illustrator, grew from these childhood
publications, eventually leading to international acclaim.
Edited by Pamela Nutt, with others
Other selected publications
a) Louisa May Alcott's 'Norna, or the Witch's Curse'
Anyone
who has read or seen 'Little Women' will remember the play that the
sisters performed within the work. 'Norna, or the Witch's Curse' is the
real play, written when Alcott was just 15yrs old. In it she provides a
farcical description in 'Little Women'. It is filled with fierce
posturing and melodramatic action, Norna shows young Louisa and
her collaborating sister Anna stretching their creative wings in poetic
drama.
Few readers of 'Little Women' would realise that
the play in the book (and the film) was based on Alcott's play written,
directed and acted out with her sisters when she was just 15.
b) Charles Dickens's 'The Bill of Fare', 'O'Thello' & Other Early Works
Dickens
wrote of his childhood,"All these things have worked together to make
me what I am". Among "these things" in his juvenilia are his genius for
story telling, his creation of comic characters and his love of the
theatre. Just like his later great work
'David Copperfield', they
throw light on a young man in love, bursting with inventiveness and
struggling to shape his ideas into the kind of public performance that
would lead to fame.
Christine
Alexander has edited this publication with Donna Couto and Kate Sumner.
It was timed last year to coincide with the 200th anniversary of his
birth. The critical essay that precedes Dickens juvenilia reminds us
that Dickens's amazing talent for storytelling was evident from a very
young age. He was a child who loved being centre stage to tell stories,
sing and entertain others. It is clear that Dickens wrote a great deal
as a child, but much of it doesn't seem to have survived. However, over
time some works have emerged from his late teens, including some of his
early poetry and fragments of his first comic drama that he titled
'O'Thello'. This is a fascinating look at some of the early work of this
great writer.
c) Leigh Hunt's 'The Palace of Pleasure & Other Early Poems'
Young
Leigh Hunt's poems, early recognized as “proofs of poetic genius”,
offer landscapes populated by happy schoolboys and errant knights freed
from magical enthrallment. Already vivid here is Hunt's lifelong
commitment to the betterment of his fellow man through friendship and
communion with nature.
The juvenilia of Hunt has been edited by Sylvia Hunt, with illustrations by Karl Denny
d) Hope Hook's 'Crossing Canada, 1907: The Diary of Hope Hook'
In
her diary of 1907, young Hope Hook records an exciting journey across
Canada to Vancouver Island and back, by ship, rail and boat. Born to a
family of artists, she is eager to observe the new country that will
soon be her home, and all its people, flora and fauna.
This work has been edited by Juliet McMaster.
e) Mary Grant Bruce, 'The Early Tales'
Pamela
Nutt edited the work of Mary Grant Bruce with Year 11 students from
Presbyterian Ladies' College in Sydney. This publication exemplifies the
importance of pedagogy to the Juvenilia project. The illustrations are
by Matilda Fay & Isabelle Ng. Mary Grant Bruce’s
nineteenth-century childhood was spent in rural Victoria and throughout
her writing career this landscape provided the setting for many of her
stories. These early tales, written for the newspaper
'The Leader
', demonstrate
an understanding of the challenges of the Australian outback and
introduce many of the concerns she would later develop in her highly
successful fiction for children.
How to Obtain the Books
For further information on all 66 books, as well as pricing and procedures to order single copies or class sets, contact the Juvenilia Press website for full details
HERE.
