I write first drafts of my fiction longhand in an old Morris chair that has been in the family for ages, but I never thought of it as the narrator. Running over a set of early 20th C images from children’s publications, I came across this one. Naturally, the chair caught my eye. Puzzled by the wording, I did an internet search and quickly turned up the source, a story in The Children’s Book (1915), edited by Frances Hodgson Burnett, (pp. 175–178). It recounts an afternoon of make-believe in which some children pretend that their mother’s Morris chair is a wagon to carry them on a Nantucket “squantum”, i.e., a picnic. The device of making the chair the narrator is a bit arch for my taste, but I love finding the details of the game. It’s the sort of thing the ghost writers in ANONYMITY might use.
One illustration in the story is signed HR. Can anyone tell me who that would be?
One illustration in the story is signed HR. Can anyone tell me who that would be?