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Bezig met laden... The Fox's Frolic; or, A Day with the Topsy Turvy Huntdoor Sir Francis Burnand
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Given some of the more suggestive asides, it's difficult to imagine that The Fox's Frolic; or, A Day With The Topsy Turvy Hunt was written for children. Its presentation here as an illustrated picture-book however, suggests that it was thought suitable enough, despite the sly adult references, for a juvenile audience. Whatever the case may be, the book, originally published in 1917, is an interesting little period piece. I don't think, despite the inversion of human and vulpine roles in the hunt, nor the use of canines as steeds rather than hunting dogs, that the poem can really be read as a critique of the hunt. Rather, I think it was simply intended as a humorous homage to this pursuit, one that subtly emphasizes the "sporting" nature of the fox. Consider such lines as "the Foxy Folk are a sporting race," and how it seeks to cast the vulpine specoes as an active, even willing participating in the hunt. This bolsters the idea of fox hunting as a pleasurable sporting contest, rather than a form of barbaric cruelty.
However one chooses to read Burnand's choice to make the foxes the hunters and a human (or the human's broom) they prey, there is no doubt that the narrative here is involving, and the artwork from Harry B. Neilson simply beautiful. I read an edition printed in London in 1917, and it is a thing of beauty! Each two-page spread features a full-page color plate on the right, and a page with a verse or two, embellished with smaller black & white illustrations, on the left. Whatever the philosophy behind it, however one chooses to read the poem itself, there is something amusing about a scene in which canine-mounted foxes come rushing across a field. As someone interested in the depiction of foxes in children's books, I found The Fox's Frolic fascinating, although I am not sure to whom I would recommend it. Perhaps to those seeking early twentieth-century depictions of the fox hunt, or perhaps to fans of comic poetry in general, and Burnand in particular? (