Each December I like to write about a Classic Fantasy for children and this year I have chosen The Rose and the Ring by William Makepiece Thackeray (1811-1863), who is best known as the author of Vanity Fair. The fact that The Rose and the Ring is a Victorian Christmas book may lead you to expect something sweet and sentimental but this is a cheerily violent and sharply satirical story about two very dysfunctional royal families. It was told to Thackeray’s own children over the Christmas of 1847 and published the following year. You can download the text for free or there are some current paperback editions. I’d suggest the one in the Classic Editions Collection which includes Thackeray’s original illustrations.
The story is set in the imaginary kingdoms of Paflagonia and Crim Tartary. When the King of Paflagonia died his brother Valoroso was supposed to act as Regent for his infant nephew, Prince Giglio. Instead, Valoroso took the throne for himself. Giglio grew up believing that he would still become the next king by marrying his cousin, Princess Angelica, but now King Valorosa is planning a match between his daughter, Angelica, and Prince Bulbo, heir to the throne of Crim Tartary. Bulbo’s father, King Padella, had seized the throne of Crim Tartary after slaying the true ruler, Cavolfiore. During the chaos, King Cavolfiore’s baby daughter, Princess Rosalba, was lost in a forest. After being nurtured by a pride of lions, the infant Rosalba arrived in Paflagonia, where she became a maid to the Princess Angelica under the name of Betsinda. Clear so far?
A key figure in the story is the ancient and powerful Fairy Blackstick. It is unwise to cross her because she can turn a person into a baboon or a doorknocker with one wave of her black rod. Blackstick has been Fairy Godmother to numerous princesses and princes but has recently come to the conclusion that the magical gifts she bestows on them often do as much harm as good. Two cases in point are the ring worn by Princess Angelica and the rose carried by Prince Bulbo. These magical objects make their owners irresistibly attractive so they have never had to try to make themselves useful or likeable. Princess Angelica is not genuinely beautiful and charming and Prince Bulbo is not genuinely handsome and heroic. Fairy Blackstick has taken a different approach with Prince Giglio and Princess Rosalba/Betsinda and bestowed on them the gift of a little misfortune in their early lives. Being raised by lions is so character-forming.
Good-natured but poorly educated Prince Giglio begins to feel his misfortunes when he learns of Angelica’s betrothal to the Prince of Crim Tartary. He is infatuated with Angelica because of her magic ring but when she throws the ring at him he sees her as she really is for the first time. Unfortunately the ring is picked up and put on by the elderly Countess Griselda Gruffanuff and she tricks Prince Giglio into agreeing to marry her. When Gruffanuff gives the ring to Betsinda, the young maid finds herself courted by both princes, who insist on fighting a duel over her, and by King Valoroso who does not take rejection well.
In the aftermath of a dramatic confrontation involving a warming pan, Prince Bulbo is nearly executed, Prince Giglio is forced to flee and Rosalba/Betsinda is driven out of the court. After passing the usual test of being kind to a little old lady, Giglio is helped by Fairy Blackstick to obtain the education which will fit him to become King of Paflagonia. Meanwhile, Betsinda is recognized in her native country as the long-lost Princess Rosalba and encouraged to claim the throne of Crim Tartary. In the ensuing civil wars, Prince Giglio is soon victorious but Rosalba has problems with more rejected suitors and faces a grisly death at the command of the cruel King Padella. Can Fairy Blackstick still contrive a happy ending for the few characters who deserve one?
The existing photographs of Thackeray make him look like a solemn and stodgy High Victorian but this is misleading. A wicked sense of humour dominates most of his writing and his lifestyle was often reckless and self-indulgent. He was addicted to gambling as a young man and to gluttony as a middle-aged man. Due to the latter he didn’t survive to become an old man. I wonder if Thackeray was thinking of himself when he has Fairy Blackstick doubt the wisdom of bestowing gifts on children which make life too easy. He inherited a fortune when he was young and quickly squandered it. Thackeray was certainly given the gift of misfortune too. His father died when Thackeray was only two years old and his mother effectively abandoned him after remarrying. Thackeray’s own marriage became a tragic one. After his wife suffered what sounds like a dreadful case of post-natal depression, Thackeray had to bring up their two surviving daughters on his own.
In the preface to The Rose and the Ring Thackeray tells us that the story was inspired by a set of Twelfth Night Characters which he drew to entertain his daughters and some other English children who were all spending Christmas in Rome. Thackeray was a skilled artist and his drawings were influenced by the grotesque characters of the Italian Commedia dell’arte street theatre, which was one of the ancestors of the British Pantomime and of Punch and Judy shows. Thackeray claims that he and an imaginative governess called Miss Bunch invented a droll history for the figures he had drawn so let us give this otherwise unknown lady due credit. In the written version, Thackeray retains the role of lively and opinionated narrator, which makes this book particularly good for reading aloud to children.
In recent times Pixar has been much praised for creating films such as the Toy Story series which appeal to both children and adults but Thackeray had already brought off this trick in the 19th century. When I first read The Rose and the Ring as a child, I was enthralled by the absurd and extraordinary events in the story, including a last minute hitch with the happy ending which is resolved in a most ingenious fashion. I enjoyed the knockabout violence – poor Prince Bulbo is almost beheaded twice and one of the wicked characters is eaten by lions – and I adored the inventive magic of Fairy Blackstick. I remember being particularly struck with the breakfast-in-a-bag she provides for Giglio which includes a boiling tea-urn, a jug full of cream, tea, sugar, a saucepan containing three nicely done eggs, bread, butter, and silver cutlery marked with the prince’s initials.
Re-reading The Rose and the Ring as an adult I appreciate different qualities. In the early days of his literary career Thackeray made his name writing parodies and satires. The Rose and the Ring works as a parody of the Fairy Tales which had become popular reading for children in the early 19th century and of the more fantastical plot-elements in the plays of Shakespeare, such as lovers bemused by magic and long-lost princesses. One striking feature is how very scathing Thackeray is about nearly all the royal personages involved. The two kings are cruel and lecherous tyrants, the Queen of Paflagonia is vapid and greedy and her daughter has none of the virtues she is credited with, Prince Bulbo, though basically decent, is gluttonous and cowardly, and even Prince Giglio is initially thoughtless and lazy.
Thackeray grew up in the Regency Period when political satire was at its most vicious and The Rose and the Ring is reminiscent of the memorably merciless cartoons of that era. He has great fun describing how a society painter (a thinly disguised Sir Thomas Lawrence) paints absurdly flattering portraits of the royal family of Paflagonia, how Princess Angelica’s famous accomplishments are actually the work of other people, and how all military princes are acclaimed as if they were conquering heroes. The contemptuous mood finally softens (a little) when Fairy Blackstick sends ignorant Giglio to university to transform him into someone closer to intellectual Prince Albert, the founder of the modern monarchy.
You don’t have to be interested in any of the above to enjoy this anti-establishment Fairy Tale. Of course Thackeray was a man of his era, and I wish he wasn’t so prejudiced against people with red hair, but on the whole his Fireside Pantomime stands up well. Do try it over the Festive Season. I wish joyful celebrations for all my readers. Until next year….