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Thomas Tapper:
Child’s own book of Great Musicians: Schubert,
1st edition Theodor Presser, Philadelphia:1916
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This is a delightful
little piece of ephemera. Thomas Tapper was one of the staff members
of the Theodore Presser organisation in Pennsylvania, music
publishers, sellers of musical nick-nacks and publishers of The
Etude music magazine. In that role he undertook much ‘hack’
work, including the writing (if we can use that term) of a series of
booklets under the general title of Child’s own book of
Great Musicians.
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The first series of these were
originally published in 1916, with further booklets published in the
20s, 30s and 40s. I’m not sure quite how many different
composers were eventually included in the series, but the number is
at least 19 (including Foster, Nevin and MacDowell: Presser’s
being an American company). Schubert was included in the first
series.
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The book is a ‘cut-out-and-stick’
book. It has 16 pages, and a separate sheet of numbered pictures.
The child is supposed to (neatly) cut out the pictures, and then
stick them into the spaces provided in the text which is a short
and, at least in Schubert’s case, particularly inaccurate
biography. The child is then expected to answer some questions (from
the text) and write a short story about the composer. Finally,
someone (hopefully not the child !) is supposed to sew the booklet
together using the needle and thread supplied in a little envelope.
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Since Tapper was writing
for an American audience, the biographies try to relate the period
of the composer’s life to famous Americans, and, in the absence
of famous composers, he has to rely on writers and poets: in
Schubert’s case Washington Irving, James Fennimore Cooper and
William Cullen Bryant, each of whom has their little picture. The
heavily Americanised emphasis of the texts makes them uncomfortable
reading, and when they were published in England (by Boosey and Co.
in the 1930s), the text was edited by Gertrude Azulay to remove the
Americanisms. These booklets were renamed Youth’s own
book…, rather than Child’s own book…
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These are not easy to find, presumably
because of their rather fragile nature. Those that are around tend
to be either unused copies in very good condition, or those where
the child has completed (some of) the exercise. To date, I’ve
found several with the pictures stuck in, but none with the story
written ! Those that I have found have varied considerably in price,
from one pound to about ten. They tend not to get advertised by
booksellers. Just keep looking - one day you may stumble across one!
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© Richard Morris March 2000 |
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