What *did* Katy read, anyway?

[lady_schrapnell]

Well, it'll be amazing if anyone else shares my (apparently boundless) fascination with this, but, just in case...

Yesterday, I posted the bit about Katy having thought Cousin Helen would be like somebody out of Amy Herbert. Started rereading What Katy Did and got to that section this morning, only to find Katy answer Clover's 'What do you suppose she looks like?' with 'Something like "Beth" in Little Women, I suppose, with blue eyes, and curls, and a long, straight nose.'

Naturally I took myself off to the online library and found the PROPER version which was actually: 'Something like "Lucy" in Mrs. Sherwood's story, I guess, with...' Amy Herbert came in an earlier sentence, which was the response to news that Cousin Helen was coming to visit: 'Or as if some character out of a book, Robinson Crusoe, say, or "Amy Herbert," had driven up with a trunk and announced the intention of spending a week.'

My copy? (Bloomsbury Books Children's Classics) 'Or as if some character out of a book, Robinson Crusoe, say, or Alice in Wonderland, had driven up...'

Yikes. It doesn't say anywhere that the book has been - updated? changed, anyway, which I thought was more than a bit bad. I haven't even had time to check if Beth does have those physical characteristics, but Little Women, published only four years before What Katy Did, is an unlikely choice as a reference point for Katy and Clover, given that the story spans a period of at least three and more likely four years. And I generally disapprove of such changes thoroughly anyway!

My impulse was to rush out and find every copy of What Katy Did I could and look at the 'Cousin Helen's Visit' chapter, but of course I couldn't find any other copies in the secondhand bookshops nearby! I'll clearly have to check every book reference there is (except for Pilgrim's Progress, which has been left untouched!) against the online version.

Comments

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I do so love this kind of research, Lady S!

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

Good thing too! :) (I doubt you've heard the last of this yet.)

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

My copy (Puffin Classic, 1982) also appears to be Proper. I had a quick look at The History of Lucy Clare online, by the way, and can see no reference at all to her hair, eyes or nose. It's almost as if Mrs Sherwood were deliberately avoiding the subject! Curious, because a couple of pages later in What Katy Did we read that 'Cousin Helen was not at all like "Lucy" in the story' - precisely on account of her brown hair and skin, and a nose that turns up at the tip.

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

Yay for more Proper editions!

Not to be outdone I improved the hour before church by reading 'The History of Lucy Clare' almost in its entirety. Very edified I was too. Mrs Sherwood would (Oh dear - 'how much would would Mrs Sherwood...') have avoided the subject as it's a first-person narrative from Lucy's point of view! There must either be another Sherwood story with a Lucy with that blond hair and straight nose or Coolidge was confused in her memory (character or author), because Lucy's not even an invalid. (And as this is the one that comes up on searches, I'm betting it's the latter.)

It's an odd little nexus of confusion though, isn't it? Coolidge apparently misremembering the story to which she's alluding, the authors of What Katy Read misremembering the allusion (and it's in the chapter on What Katy Did, so seems even odder!) and the editor of the Bloomsbury edition changing it, in a way that makes no sense. (Doubly, as I checked that too, and in 'story time', Katy and Clover are making a reference to a book which was being published as they speak, though for them it's part of the long-standing family image of Helen.)

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

There is (according the Wikipedia) another Sherwood story, The History of Little Lucy and her Dhaye (1823). I wonder if that's the one? I can imagine her expiring blondly on a subcontinental chaise-longue.

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

Yes, I found that too! Not available online though. I can see that scenario as well but I'm still slightly leaning away from believing that it's the one for two reasons: it's a novel, rather than a story, and its Lucy being a child might make her a less likely image for the grown-up Helen. I do admit that neither reason is a strong one, and it's as much the fact that I like this little triangle of error as anything else!

[emmaco.livejournal.com]

Yay! I have the proper version :)

I hadn't even thought about the book references being changed but I think you're right and you'll have to check them all now...

[emmaco.livejournal.com]

PS: I find all of this extremely interesting. Historical research + children's books. What more could you want?

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

:) Why I love my internet friends, in a five-word sentence!

[amomandagirl.livejournal.com]

Well, that's rather creepy. And all those people who love Little Women seem to be able to deal with the fact that it mentions all sorts of books none of us had ever heard of.

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

Lots of the ones in An Old-Fashioned Girl are really, truly obscure. I must try to see if anything is changed in older Bloomsbury eds of Little Women too...

[hafren.livejournal.com]

I would swear there was no physical description of Beth in Little Women. What there certainly is, is a reference to her sister Amy having blue eyes and blonde hair. I wonder if the "Amy" coincidence brought the confusion in?

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

Yes, I've been looking and have found no physical description of Beth at all - only her being 'rosy' and 'smooth-haired' initially. Nothing about hair colour that I can see. The substitution of Beth for this unknown Sherwoodian Lucy is all wrong quite aside from the publication date problem (given what I've read of Mrs Sherwood's stories), but Amy would be utterly insane.

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

My - I've just seen that you quote my father on your sidebar.

[colyngbourne.livejournal.com]

Fascinating. Both my copies (one from the early 70's and one from the late 90's) have the 'proper' words in. I can't imagine why anyone would change the reference.

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

Good - more Proper versions! I guess I can see the change only too easily (not in an approving way, of course) - along the lines of the changes made to British kids' books published in the States. 'They won't understand this word/phrase/reference, and we couldn't possibly expect them to figure it out in context or even *enjoy* the exposure to different cultures, so we'll make it simple for them.' (Changes made in the opposite direction too, of course, but less frequently.) This one seems to have been especially cluelessly done though, which is saying something.