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The World of Children's Literature:
The Eleanor Burts Collection
at Winthrop University

Terry L. Norton
(with Ron Chepsiuk)
Winthrop University

Born in 1916, Burts had an early, strong connection with Winthrop. She attended kindergarten there and from 1933 to 1937 was an undergraduate, majoring in English and minoring in French. Although she had always been an avid reader and lover of books, her love of children's literature "blossomed," as she says, during her undergraduate days primarily because of Maude M. Hall, one of her professors in Winthrop's Department of English (personal interview).

After teaching in the Parker School District of Greenville, Burts completed her master's degree in teacher education in New York at Columbia Teachers College in 1941. She then took a job teaching in Hawaii, where she was an eyewitness to the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7. Remaining in Hawaii throughout the four years of the war, Burts says that the United States government considered teachers "essential to the war effort" (personal interview). Other teaching positions followed. Today, she is retired and lives in Bronxville, New York. The story of how her collection came to the university is almost as fascinating as some of the items it contains.

One frigid January morning in 1980, several parcels from New York arrived at Dacus Library. When Pat Rice, who was then head of the Acquisitions Department, began opening the boxes, she had difficulty in believing what met her eyes. How could parcels containing such rare and valuable gems have been entrusted to the United States mail service? Here were unusual books like an 1881 copy of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, bound in red oak from the beams of Elstow Church where Bunyan had worshipped in the seventeenth century. Other items unwrapped by Rice included a boxed set of Tom Thumb and Thumbelina books, dated 1939, which had been hand-colored by the illustrator, Hilda Scott, part of a limited edition of only 1,200. By this time, Rice had been joined by other Winthrop Library staff members, all whispering in excitement as other parcels revealed yet more treasures like Beatrix Potter children's books from the early 1900s and a miniature Tora that probably would have been given as a New Year's present to a Jewish child (Eppenheimer, ts.).

The next day, the Acquisitions Department inventoried the entire gift and found that it totaled more than 200 books. When Shirley Tarlton, at that time Dean of the Winthrop Library, was asked to assess what the U. S. mail had delivered, she remarked, "We were overwhelmed when we looked into the boxes. This is the rarest and most valuable collection, in my opinion, ever received by the Winthrop Library" (Eppenheimer, ts.). and yet, the 1980 donation by Burts was a mere prologue of things to come. In fact, to paraphrase Bogart's famous line from Casablanca, it was the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

During the next 12 years, Burts donated over 600 books and other items to Winthrop, thereby forming what today is known as the Eleanor Burts Collection, the major portion of which consists of children's literature. "It's easy to see," says Paul Z. Dubois, the current library dean, "that this cornerstone of the Dacus Library Special Collections constitutes a labor of love for Burts. She carefully protected and cared for each book. Even the very old books are in excellent condition" (personal interview). Besides the titles already mentioned, the collection boasts an 1839 five-by-three-inch volume of Oliver Goldsmith's novel, The Vicar of Wakefield; an 1887 first edition of Joel Chandler Harris' Free Joe and Other Georgia Sketches; a 1905 version of Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses, illustrated by the renowned Jessie Wilcox Smith; a rare 1917 The Child's World Primer, an early book used in South Carolina and almost twenty other states for initial reading instruction and memorable for its character Baby Ray (Evans 3); and such little known picture books as a 1940 The Lord's Prayer, by Ingri and Edgar Parin d'Aulaire, famous for their numerous books with illustrations in stone lithography.

Along with rare books, the collection also includes such teaching aids as wax writing tablets and a reproduction of a hornbook (an early tool for helping children learn their ABCs). In addition, there are adult works on topics that range from Isadora Duncan's 1928 The Art of the Dance to Selma G. Lane's 1980 The Art of Maurice Sendak, the latter filled with elaborate pop-up pages of artwork by the author of Where the Wild Things Are. In fact, Lane's book is signed by the author and by Sendak himself, who has also autographed his celebrated picture book, Where the Wild Things Are, yet another item in the collection. Porcelain figurines of Beatrix Potter's storybook characters like Peter Rabbit, dolls from around the world, Christmas cards designed by eminent children's illustrators like Tasha Tudor, Norman Rockwell, and Feodor Rojankovsky round out the bequest.

According to Burts, her collection was built "book by book" from diverse sources (letter to Terry L. Norton). Some of the items came from antique shops and antiquarian bookstores both at home and abroad; many others, from the libraries of relatives or friends who knew that she liked old books. One is tempted to believe that early in life Burts had followed Roald Dahl's exhortation in The Minpins, posthumously published in 1991. At the end of his book, Dahl enjoins his readers "to watch with glittering eyes the whole world . . . because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it" (48).

Burts has found magic throughout her life, and she is still collecting. As a result of a recent trip to England in 1992, she obtained 56 additional items. One is a book of weights and measures printed in 1758 by John Newbery, the famed eighteenth century London publisher credited as the first to espouse and practice the idea of producing books especially for children (Meigs, et al. 58).

Other acquisitions from this trip include chapbooks, which were forerunners of today's comic books and which often contained the actions and adventures of such superheroes of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as Jack the Giant Killer (Iona Opie and Peter Opie 62) and such archvillains as the "monstrous giant, named Galigantus; who, by the help of an old conjurer, betrays many knights and ladies into his strong castle . . ." ("The History of Jack and the Giants" 81). Sutherland and Arbuthnot indicate the importance of chapbooks by saying that they "preserved and popularized some of the precious elements of literature that children love" (56). Such books were read by literary giants like Henry Fielding, Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, and William Cowper (Iona Opie and Peter Opie 61-62). Originally sold by chapmen, or peddlers, these tiny books, by 1760 or so, were simple, folded sheets of paper without covers and usually of eight or sixteen unstitched pages (Darton 71). Since they were bought by children, the word "chap" became an abbreviated form of chapman and came into use in the eighteenth century to mean a fellow, or lad, according to The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology. Webster's Third New International Dictionary indicates that this use of the term is still heard in the United States South and Midland. The chapbooks bought by Burts date from the 1820s and include such titles as The Life of Jack Sprat and Nursery Poems from the Ancient and Modern Poets. Like the older chapbooks, those purchased by Burts are illustrated. Although their pictures as well as grammar appear to be of better quality than that found in their forebears of the previous two centuries, the verse is unadulterated doggerel, especially in The Life of Jack Sprat, as is illustrated by the following quatrain:

Jack Sprat was wheeling
His wife by the ditch,
Barrow turn'd over,
And in she did pitch. (6)

One reason for Burts' gift to the library is her belief that future teachers will appreciate the present more fully if they know the past. As she has noted, contemporary children's literature is rich in beautiful illustrations and varied in numerous subjects, qualities often missing in books from bygone days (personal interview). Encompassing several centuries, her collection will undoubtedly enhance the appreciation and enlarge the knowledge not only of Winthrop students but also of researchers as the past yields up its secrets through the wonderfully imaginative world of children's literature. In point of fact, anyone whose scholarly bent is toward children's literature, popular culture, or the history of education should find this material a treasure trove for research. To use the words of the poet John Dryden, "Here is God's plenty" (497). Individuals who want further information about the Eleanor Burts Collection or about a guide to it should write to the following address:

The Archives and Special Collections
Dacus Library
Winthrop University
Rock Hill, SC 29733

Anderson, Hans Christian. Thumbelina. Ed. Vernon Ives. Illus. Hilda Scott. N.p. Holiday House, 1939.

The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology. 1988 ed.

Bunyan, John. The Pilgrim's Progress. Elstow ed. Illus. W. Gunston, et al. London: John Walker, 1881.

Burts, Eleanor. Letter to Terry L. Norton. 16 July 1992.

Burts, Eleanor. Personal interview. With Terry L. Norton. 7 May 1992.

Dahl, Roald. The Minpins. Illus. Patrick Benson. New York: Viking, 1991.

Darton, F. J. Harvey. Children's Books in England: Five Centuries of Social Life. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1982.

Dryden, John. "Preface to the Fables." John Dryden: Selected Works. Ed. William Frost. 2nd ed. San Francisco: Rinehart, 1971. 485-506.

Dubois, Paul Z. Personal interview. With Ron Chepesiuk. 27 July 1992.

Duncan, Isadora. The Art of the Dance. New York: Theater Arts, 1928.

Elmer, J. Tables of Weights and Measures. London: J. Newbery, 1758.

Eppenheimer, Margaret. Winthrop Given Rare Book Collection, ts. Eleanor Burts' File. Special Collections Department. Archives. Winthrop U, Rock Hill, SC.

Evans, Thomas K. "Remember Baby Ray?" Winthrop Alumnae Magazine Fall 1968: 3.

Goldsmith, Oliver. The Vicar of Wakefield. Exeter, England: J. & B. Williams, 1839.

Harris, Joel Chandler. Free Joe and Other Georgia Sketches. New York: Scribner's, 1887.

"The History of Jack and the Giants." The Classic Fairy Tales. Eds. Iona Opie and Peter Opie. 1974. New York: Oxford UP, 1980. 64-82.

The History of Tom Thumb. Illus. Hilda Scott. N.p. Holiday House, 1939.

Lane, Selma G. The Art of Maurice Sendak. New York: Abrams, 1980.

The Life of Jack Sprat. Banbury, England: J. G. Rusher [c. 1820?].

The Lord's Prayer. Illus. Ingri d'Aulaire and Edgar Parin d'Aulaire. New York: Doubleday, 1940.

Marzials, Theo, ed. Pan-Pipes: A Book of Old Songs. 2nd ed. Illus. Walter Crane. London: Routledge [c. 1900?].

Meigs, Cornelia, et al. A Critical History of Children's Literature. Rev. ed. London: MacMillan, 1969.

Norton, Donna E. Through the Eyes of a Child: An Introduction to Children's Literature. 3rd ed. New York: Merrill, 1991.

Nursery Poems from the Ancient and Modern Poets. Banbury, England: J. G. Rusher [c. 1820?].

Opie, Iona, and Peter Opie. The Classic Fairy Tales. 1974. New York: Oxford UP, 1980.

Sendak, Maurice. Where the Wild Things Are. New York: Harper, 1963.

Shakespeare, William. William Shakespeare: The Complete Works. Ed. G. B. Harrison. 3rd ed. New York: Harcourt, 1968.

Stevenson, Robert Louis. A Child's Garden of Verses. Illus. Jessie Wilcox Smith. New York: Scribner's, 1905.

Sutherland, Zena, and May Hill Arbuthnot. Children and Books. 8th ed. New York: Harper Collins, 1991.

Webster's Third New International Dictionary. 1961 ed.

Withers, Sarah, Hetty S. Browne, and W. K. Tate. The Child's World Primer. Richmond: B. F. Johnson, 1917.