Images by Anne and Janet Grahame Johnstone

[asakiyume]

In my childhood, we had a picturebook collection of Hans Christian Andersen fairytales illustrated by twin sisters, Anne and Janet Grahame Johnstone. I've written about them here before in the context of "The Red Shoes"--I had vivid memories of their illustrations of that story, particularly an illustration of Karen begging an executioner to cut her feet off. At the time I wrote that entry, I couldn't find that particular illustration online, but in the meantime, someone has uploaded it and a bunch of others from that story. HERE IS THE SCARY ILLUSTRATION




And while I'm at it, here are several more:

THE ANGEL WILL NOT LET HER INTO CHURCH IN HER RED SHOES




What poor Karen was wearing before she got the red shoes:




Here she is going to church in the red shoes that she promised her grandmother she wouldn't wear (this is before she's cursed to dance and all that). Her grandmother has poor vision, so Karen wore those bright red babies ANYWAY.



The one image I did think to resize was one I went searching for for osprey_archer--it's not from "The Red Shoes" but from "The Wild Swans"--it's a picture of the swan brother whose nettle shirt the princess doesn't quite finish knitting, so he ends up with one arm still a swan's wing. (In the version of the story osprey_archer read, he ended up with *two* swan wings, which is a much more significant handicap.)

Comments

[kore]

Did they illustrate the bit where the shoes GO DANCING AWAY WITH HER FEET IN THEM or was that Just Too Much? //cackles

[asakiyume]

IIRC that image was in there too, but I could be imagining it!

[minoanmiss]

I always did wonder how he managed with a wing and an arm.

I do want to retell that particular fairytale one day.

(oh the Red Shoes)

[asakiyume]

I had a friend who no longer blogs who had a character with one arm a wing, inspired by this story I'm sure. He was a cool character. "The Wild Swans" definitely is full of **stuff** that would make for a good retelling.

[amaebi]

Even contemplating the tailoring is daunting.

[asakiyume]

Yes! The illustration doesn't really show it, but yeah: all his clothes will need giant slits so the wing can go through, or they'll need to be open entirely on that side and then maybe fasten with ties underneath the wing.

[amaebi]

Yay for laces!

[rachelmanija]

I love those illustrations. The shoes are so tempting, and the swan-winged prince is obviously the best prince.

[asakiyume]

Right?! BEST PRINCE!

[teenybuffalo]

I'm so happy to encounter all this love for the brother with one swan wing. It never occurred to me till now to think of it consciously, but he is best prince and I like him. Plainly, what he did afterwards was to relearn to do most things with one hand in the same way somebody who had lost one arm would, relearn to do most things with a mostly human body as humans would, and cope with being extremely attractive.

[asakiyume]

And cope with being extremely attractive--I think I read a short story that was kind of this! Like that he was hounded by young women who just wanted to stand near him and thought he was So Cool but meanwhile it was hard maneuvering through life with one arm and one wing.

[teenybuffalo]

I'm torn between "Yay! Someone wrote this so now I don't have to!" and "Damn! Someone else got to it first!" (I know it's OK to write the same idea myself, I'm just having a moment of jealousy.)

[asakiyume]

I for one would like to read your version. The one I read wasn't bad, but--there is definitely room for more.

[teenybuffalo]

Well now I'm gonna try and write it!

[asakiyume]

YESSSSSSS!

[cmcmck]

The work reminds me of another illustrator but I can't for the life of me remember who!

[asakiyume]

If the name comes to you, let me know--I'd like to check out their work!

[cmcmck]

Kay Nielsen!

[asakiyume]

Oh yes, he's *marvelous* (and that particular picture is gorgeous)

[mallorys_camera]

I am thinking from the girl's strawberry blonde hair and the general look of the illustrations (which I associate with the early 1950s) that they were heavily influenced by the film The Red Shoes.

Which is one of my favorites. 😊

[asakiyume]

We had this book in the early 1970s; apparently the sisters were English. But I bet you're right re: influences!

Hmmm, your comment got me to look them up, and Wikipedia tells me they were born in 1928, and one died in 1979 and the other in 1998. They never married and lived together, so when the one sister died, it must have been devastating for the other.

The book we had, Stories from Hans Christian Andersen, was apparently published in 1968. (You can see it about halfway down the page here.

[mallorys_camera]

Possibly devestating but possibly freeing. 😊

The second sister lived for 19 more years. Perhaps it's my poetic licensing, but I always imagine that people who are super close in a supportive way die fairly close to each othe. 😊

[asakiyume]

And in any case, I like the idea of imagining a happy future for her--20 whole years (well almost)! You can lose yourself in grief for several of them and *still* go on to new happiness hunting fossils or fostering kittens or whatever.

[anna_wing]

Nicholas Stuart Gray's "The Seventh Swan" is the best version of this story I've ever read. All about the youngest brother and what happened to him afterwards, and how he dealth with having to be (mostly) human again. He's decades out of print and shouldn't be. At least the equal of Diana Wynne Jones.

[asakiyume]

Now that's a story I'd like to read. I wonder if I could get it on interlibrary loan...

[anna_wing]

He wrote what were then called children's books, some of which might be classified as YA now, I suppose. This one was definitely on the adult end of the spectrum. A lot of its deeper themes went right over my head when I first read it as a child. But even his books for younger children, including several collections of short stories, were amazing. He was like Jones in that he could suggest an ocean of numinous significance in a single, simple sentence.

[asakiyume]

He was like Jones in that he could suggest an ocean of numinous significance in a single, simple sentence
--How marvelous ♥

I'm finding this on a reread of Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn--actually, it's not me doing the rereading: I'm a listener, and teenybuffalo is reading aloud to an assortment of us over Zoom. But yes: single sentences that just ring like a bell, so full of meaning.

[sartorias]

Oh I remember those illustrators! I collected so much of their art for my daughter, who lived picture books they illustrated.

[asakiyume]

We had only the one book, but we loved its pictures.

[wayfaringwordhack]

I have vague memories of having read/heard The Red Shoes--or at least references to it--but seeing the illustrations and what not, I believe I probably blocked it out of my mind! :P

[asakiyume]

It is full-on gory!

[rimturse]

Heh... yeah, H.C. Andersen could be pretty bleak. I remember using his fairy tales and poems for my upper secondary school Danish assignment: Death in Fairy Tales.

I was also slightly horrified to find that Disney had given The Little Mermaid a happy ending. :p

(And I am making a coloring book with the Wild Swans, translating the story into English from the original text).

[asakiyume]

I want to buy that coloring book when it's ready!

[rimturse]

Yay! I'll let you know. I'm the master of procrastination, though, so it might be a while. I have just two images so far.