COVE

Beyond The Looking Glass: Extraordinary World of Fairy Tale and Fantasy, is an edited anthology of Victorian novels, novellas, and poems by Jonathan Cott and published in 1973 by Stonehill Publications in New York. The anthology assembled a collection of influential "children's" fairy tales of the Victorian period, including Rosetti's "Goblin Market." The anthology featured an impressive collection of over 200 illustrations, 10 Victorian texts, and introductory material by Leslie Fielder and Jonathan Cott himself. The final text in the anthology, Cott reproduced Laurence Housman's 1893 illustrated edition of "Goblin Market" over the original 1862 publication. In 1975, Stonehill Publications would also go on to print a special collector's edition of "Goblin Market" with Housmans illustrations and a new ornamental slip case designed by Paul Bacon.

Though the editorial features of Beyond The Looking Glass surely target an adult, academic audience, Rosetti's "Goblin Market" was included on the belief that it was part of Victorian children's literature. The interpretation of "Goblin Market" as children's literarature arose in the 20th century, and especially with Arthur Rachkam's 1933 illustrated edition that promulgated the interpretation of Rosetti's poem as "mere fairy story." By the time Cott's anthology was published in 1973, a popular Freudian analysis of the poem—and Victorian fairy tales at large—presupposed a "repressed" Victorian sexuality in poems and novels that were thought to be written for children, but were always meant for an adult reader. Leslie Fielder, in her introductory essay in the anthology, refers to the "crypto-sexuality" of children's literature in the Victorian age. Similarly, Cott's own editorial matter suggests that the stories included in the anthology are understood best by adults, who can pick up on the sexual subtexts. There is even reference of Cott's editorial material influencing a pornographic illustrated rendition of "Goblin Market" in Playboy. Beyond The Looking Glass thus represents a pivotal moment is the cultural life of "Goblin Market" wherein the text begins to be viable for a pornographic adult market, as well as academic and children's markets.

Primary Source(s):

Kooistra, Lorraine Janzen. Christina Rossetti and Illustration : A Publishing History, Ohio University Press, 2002. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezproxy.lib.ryerson.ca/lib/ryerson/det....