Another A Apple Pie
So our next alphabet book profile is going to take us back to the beginning, thanks to a recent acquisition. We’re all about supporting working authors, small presses, and indie bookstores here at the Butterflies & Aliens Library, but the used book ecosystem also plays a huge role in the overall bookish environment. And a recent side quest to a book sale at Find Edmonton, a local social enterprise operated by Homeward Trust Edmonton, resulted in this new addition:
The cover of a different version of A Apple Pie, this one illustrated by Kate Greenaway.
And a bonus picture of the stack of 20 books acquired at the Find Edmonton book sale!
This book shares the same title as the very first alphabet book we profiled in this series, A Apple Pie illustrated by Janet and Anne Grahame Johnstone, but originally published 86 years earlier. While the Johnstones’ version came out in 1973, this newly acquired Greenaway one is based on woodcuts originally engraved in 1886.
The book actually provides some background on the history of the text, but ironically lacks a clear indication of when this specific edition was (re)published.
The book begins with the publisher’s note (pictured above) that reads:
“Kate Greenaway used an early version of the rhyme to illustrate A APPLE PIE which was first published in 1886 and it will be noticed that there is no rhyme for the letter I.
The rhyme of A APPLE PIE is very ancient and reference is made to it as early as 1671 in one of the writings of John Eachard. In these early versions the letters I and J were not differentiated. The letter J as we know it to-day was the curved initial form of the letter I and was always used before a vowel.”
At the time of posting this article, Wikipedia even featured the cover of this Greenaway edition on its article about this rhyme, under the article title of Apple Pie ABC.
But what is less clear is when this specific copy of A Apple Pie was actually published. There have been many reprints of the Greenaway A Apple Pie since it first came out in 1886, but the only available clue in this copy is cryptic at best.
If you look closely at the title page of the book, it first references “London • Frederick Warne & Co. Ltd. • & New York” in text that appears to be part of the original woodcut.
But as we zoom in, we can see in smaller type below that the words “Printed in Great Britain by Edmund Evans Ltd. from original woodblocks engraved in 1886.”
Then below that are the numbers “148.866” – a number which varies from reprint to reprint of this book, but we have not yet found its significance or correlation to a year of publication.
That mystery aside, the woodcuts themselves are marvelous and very vintage…
“A Apple Pie”
“B Bit It”
Under the heading of “creative liberties” the rhyme dodges the challenge of one of the usual suspects with a solid entry for Q…
“Q Quartered It”
But then this final entry went solidly into liberties…
“U V W X Y Z All Had A Large Slice and Went Off To Bed”
So it wasn’t just our friend X that got shortchanged, but their entire neighbourhood! According to the Wikipedia article about Apple Pie ABC, this ‘cheat’ is unique to this version, a way for Greenaway to “get away with only twenty illustrations.” And there have been many other variations of the rhyme before and since.
I guess that means we’ve now added a new side quest and sub genre to our Alphabetica Collection – variant editions of A Apple Pie. Oh no…
But in the meantime, Happy Reading and Happy Alphabetizing!
– Winston
