Thomas Roscoe (1791–1871)

Published in 1873, two years after Thomas Roscoe's death, this beautifully-bound, profusely illustrated children's edition of the history of Reynard the Fox draws upon Roscoe's earlier translation of the tale, originally contained in his four-volume German Novelists, released in 1826. The text here includes all of the major incidents of Reynard's story, from the ways in which the vulpine anti-hero mistreated his fellow animals, to the manner in which the wily fox eventually won against every enemy. The story is paired with one hundred illustrations from artists A.T. Elwes and John Jellicoe, making this a truly pleasurable little volume to peruse...

When I picked up Roscoe's The Pleasant History of Reynard the Fox as part of my research for my masters dissertation, which examined three centuries of children's retellings of the Reynard story in the Anglophone world, I was immediately struck by the strong textual similarity between it and Felix Summerly's 1846 The Most Delectable History of Reynard the Fox. Many passages in the two works were identical, and many others were almost identical, leading me to suppose that the Summerly must have been a source for this edition. The preface here, which goes into great detail about the history of Reynard in German, Dutch and English editions, does not mention Summerly however, but rather maintains that the present version comes, through various channels, from the German version of Reynard contained in the Lubeck incunabula of 1498. This led me to look a little further, and I then realized that this 1873 edition was in fact taken from Roscoe's earlier translation, mentioned above, meaning that it was Roscoe who influenced Summerly, rather than the other way around. It's worth noting that although this presentation is clearly meant for children - something attested to not only by the copious illustrations, but by contemporary reviews of the book in such publications as The Westminster Review (Jan, 1873) - that Roscoe's original translation was very much meant for adults. It does not appear that the text has been changed much, between the two, making this one of the few children's Reynards of the Victorian era that still included some of the bawdier elements to be found in the traditional adult versions. This is an enjoyable version, and well worth the time of any reader who enjoys Reynard stories, or who appreciates beautiful Victorian bindings and book illustration.… (more)