The Art of Book Design: Le Petit Chaperon Rouge


Charles Perrault (1628-1703), auteur ; Félix Lorioux (1872-1964), illustrateur, Paris, Ed. Hachette, 1919.

A delightful telling of the Red Riding Hood Story with artwork by Felix Lorioux, one of France’s best-loved artists. I’ve included a few interior plates below the fold.

Charles Perrault (1628-1703), auteur ; Félix Lorioux (1872-1964), illustrateur, Paris, Ed. Hachette, 1919.

Charles Perrault (1628-1703), auteur ; Félix Lorioux (1872-1964), illustrateur, Paris, Ed. Hachette, 1919.

Charles Perrault (1628-1703), auteur ; Félix Lorioux (1872-1964), illustrateur, Paris, Ed. Hachette, 1919.

 

Via: Michael Moon Bookshop (Tumblr)

Comments

  1. Jazzlet says

    Hah, she has chequer board bread in her basket. I sometimes make it as it has a high proportion of crust to crumb and Mr J loves crusts.

    I like the “Pan! pan! pan!” too.

  2. rq says

    The Wolf definitely looks more Sleaze than Scary in this version.
    What is also interesting in terms of gendered language is that “le Petit Chaperon Rouge” is masculine, even though clearly applied to someone visibly feminine, even though it is less of a name and more of a title (in this context).

  3. says

    rq
    In German it’s neuter, because all diminutives are neuter. “Das Rotkäppchen”, which is why all girls are neuter (das Mädchen) and in many regions (like mine) it’s common to say “der Peter und das/es Petra”.
    It’s also “das Baby”

  4. says

    In Czech it is feminine, “Červená Karkulka” -- Karkulka, the name of the red hat, is feminine.

    These illustrations are really beautiful.

  5. rq says

    Giliell

    In German it’s neuter, because all diminutives are neuter.

    One of the neat things about German, I find. I like ‘das Baby’. It’s just a baby.

    which is why all girls are neuter (das Mädchen) and in many regions (like mine) it’s common to say “der Peter und das/es Petra”

    I would like to say I find this odd, but here you can also transform traditionally feminine persons into masculine, i.e. instead of saying meitene (girl), you can say skuķis, and some people say sievišķis (woman) instead of sieviete, although this would be in informal usage, with an imperceptible (!) lean towards disrespect.

    Charly
    In Latvian she is called Sarkangalvīte, “Little Redhead”. Then again, there’s that figure of speech where the item of clothing can stand in for the bodypart -- cepure (hat) can stand in for head, too.

  6. Tethys says

    English might be efficient with the,a, it…, but it lacks the subtle suffix/prefix/allusion aspects and opportunities for subtle word-play that are in most (All?) of the other Indo-european languages. I have no idea how it is done in proper modern German, but in Old High Frankish/German/Dutch-Frisian/Anglo-Saxon etc, the possessive case agrees with what is possessed (red-ridinghood), and the adjectives are inflected to agree. Thus masculine ‘ Le petit’ Chaperon rouge, but is it literally a riding cap in French? The word itself reminds me of Percheron horses, but no idea if those words are etymologically related.

    I love the cottage’s details of grass roof and rainbarrel, the hooded crow on a broken ladder, her red clogs (which I think of as a Dutch thing, klumpen) and “Tirez la bobinette.” I can picture the latch-string that is pulled with the “bobinette”, but it is also a kenning for a whole group of words that are associated with red, and have multiple meanings in addition to being proper names. Bob- a head/body movement, particularly of birds b/robin, a small useful object, often holds thread, a bird, a small robber, a term of endearment. Rube(needs an umlaut) turnip, beet. Ruby/Rubin, a gemstone, a sandwich, a color , Bobby, Robert.

  7. Tethys says

    Thank you to whoever made my comment actually show up. Sorry for posting it three times before figuring out something was not working properly.

  8. Ice Swimmer says

    In Finnish Little Red Riding Hood is Punahilkka. Puna is red (as a noun or in compound words, punainen is red as an adjective) and hilkka means a bonnet (of the type worn by women), however, Hilkka is also a woman’s name, possibly due to the Finnish translation of the story.

Leave a Reply