This imaginative world of ‘reality’ [Greyfriars], peopled with a believable cast, set in recognizable places (despite the fantasy plots), led to the familiarity decried by Orwell[1] who called this “the untiring effort to keep the atmosphere intact”; but went on to admit the world so created is “not easily forgotten.” The people and the places recurred regularly in familiar surroundings, at familiar times, as the Magnet followed the seasons.[2]

The ‘World of Frank Richards’[3] is a rich landscape, as we know. Orwell, on the one hand reviled, on the other hand revelled in, this microcosm. The familiarity thus vilified is, I submit, one of the strengths of the Magnet stories. The width of Frank Richards’ landscape, peopled by a large and varied cast, set with all manner of geographical features – both physical and man-made – create a series of scenes that lead us to want to read on.

It is fascinating to look at how such a phenomenon arises. Let us start by looking beyond Greyfriars to try to understand this.

***         ***      ***      ***

When the daydreamer died, leaving unfinished his life’s-work – an artefact that might be useful to mend his neighbour’s house – his sense of disquiet was not laid to rest until, after a time in limbo, he came to Heaven. Here, feeling at peace, he realised that all around him was what had been his life’s-work. The landscape he had merely dreamed, the tree he had striven vainly to paint, the mountains that were no more than a half dreamed of protomemory, were now so real that he lived amongst them. Even more incredible was that his reality was the haven that would be inhabited by those who came after him.

His memorial in the world, and all that remained of him or his works, was a corner of a painting (and even that turned out to be ephemeral) – a single leaf – a leaf that gives this Fairy Story its title – Leaf by Niggle[4] written by Tolkien as a pure example of a fairy story.[5]

The Oxford English Dictionary defines Fairy-Tale (Not Fairy Story which merits only a subentry) as

A) A tale about fairies. Also gen., fairy legend, Faërie.
B) An unreal or incredible story.      
C) A falsehood.

The etymology of the word is interesting and plays a part in Tolkien’s thesis. It derives from the French fae, from which come fay, Faërie, and fairy. He considers the fairy-being ‘largely a sophisticated product of literary fancy’.[6] He considers their perceived diminutive size to derive from the English love of the delicate and fine, and then from a form of ‘rationalisation’,

[this love] … transformed the glamour of Elfland into mere finesse, and invisibility into a fragility that could hide in a cowslip or shrink behind a blade of grass.[7]

He then makes a vital point:

… Fairy stories are not in normal English usage stories about Fairy, that is Faërie, the realm, or state in which fairies have their being. Faërie contains many things besides elves and fays, and besides dwarfs, witches, trolls, giants, or dragons: it holds … ourselves, mortal men, when we are enchanted.[8]

For Tolkien, most ‘Fairy Stories’ are about the adventures of men in the Perilous Realm. On the other hand, he considers that travellers’ tales (i.e. Gulliver’s Voyage to Lilliput)[9], stories that depend on Dream [sic], or the dreaming of mortal men to explain the marvellous happenings (Alice in Wonderland)[10], the beast fable (Beauty and the Beast,[11] The Wind in the Willows)[12], and other examples of anthropomorphism, must not be included as Fairy Stories.

According to Helm,[13] it is correct to consider Leaf by Niggle as an allegory. In other words, to describe a subject under the guise of some other topic that appears similar. Helm sees Leaf as an allegorical description of the way in which The Lord of the Rings grew out of the leaf of The Hobbit. Niggle is seen to exemplify the frustrations that Tolkien, himself, felt during the difficult times of creation. The journey to death that is the central theme of the story was a personal attempt to overcome the author’s depression and fixation with his own mortality.

However, while this is important in the development of Tolkien’s thesis, it is not with this aspect of the derivation of the story that we are concerned. Instead, it is the internal ideology expressed in the introduction to this paper that acts as my starting point in the exploration of Landscape in Children’s Literature. Leaf by Niggle has as its central theme the concept of a Homeland; that throughout our life we are striving to create our own Landscape. Whether it is a fictional world into which we escape or one that we create out of ‘reality’ in which to live our lives is a sentient choice made by the adult. But, when children, truth, reality, fact, and fiction become intertwined in a complex world –- the world of a child. This world is composed of part fact, part fantasy, and part fiction. Imaginary people may enhance the landscape. Christopher Robin,[14] a fictional being with ‘imaginary friends is possibly the best-known fictional example; while L. M. Montgomery (the author of Anne of Green Gables)[15] had her imaginary friends in her private, imaginary world into which she escaped from her misery; friends who changed with her mood.

Whether the landscape and the characters the reader visualize is ‘real’, does not matter. Rather, it is how the reader ‘sees’ the Author’s words. These combine with his, probably subconscious, perceptions to create the illusory landscape with all the artefacts and people that comprise it.

We see with our mind’s eye. And the ‘real’ landscape about us is created in part, and interpreted, by individual memories or past events that colour our vision – even sometimes blur it. Thus, everyone has some amount of ‘fiction’ in their everyday seeing. When it comes to reading, this personal, private, world, whether inhabited by others or not, must intrude into and influence the reader’s interpretation of the text. One’s past, one’s likes and dislikes, one’s loves, one’s prejudices, all combine in a subconscious interpretation of the text.

Textual imagery has to be even more critical in Children’s literature than adult. Through the written (or spoken) word, there must be an evocation of the story being told. Mere ‘words’ are not enough – a visual response to the stimulus of the spoken or written word has to be a major part of the reader’s, or listener’s, reaction. There has to be, and this is seen especially in the ‘Fairy Story’, an illusory landscape. This is peopled with imaginary beings and strange creatures, all of whom are used to illustrate the moral to the tale – for most Classical ‘Fairy Stories’ (of Andersen[16] or the Brothers Grimm)[17] do have a moral of the achievement (through hardship and strife) of an apparently unattainable goal. However, it is the unreality of the setting that gives the Fairy Story at least part of its success. The fright engendered by the witches and hobgoblins; the claustrophobia brought about by the enchanted woods and castles; the frissons produced by the dangers of giants or man-eating ogres – all combine to create a resistance in the reader that, maybe paradoxically, welds him to the story. The conventions of the genre require this form of narration. There is also a standard register in which the stories are related and by which such tales can be recognised by the audience:

“Once upon a time...”

“There was once...” etc.

The various parts that compose a fairy story combine to create a familiar pattern. But, is this pattern comfortable? If one considers the Märchen of the Brothers Grimm,[18] there is no comfort offered nor intended.

To return to Niggle. There is no escapism intended here. Tolkien’ s thesis is that each of us has to create a ‘real place’ to inhabit within the external realities. It is not a place of escape. Rather, it is a personal construction of the outside world internally reconstructed. Without this concept, the harshness of life has no leaven. This mental construct is not seen as an ostrich-like burying of one’s head in the sand – but rather as a goal of the idealist. The reader, therefore, creates, in his mind’s eye, an idealized Valhalla which, perhaps through work and effort, may become an attainable Shangri-La. Perhaps Tolkien was trying to create a modern parable as opposed to a modern Arabian Night – although he insists Leaf by Niggle is a true Fairy Story.

While Tolkien does underline the middle-class ethos of satisfaction with one’s lot and position within society throughout Leaf by Niggle, he is more concerned with familiarity and home.

Was Frank Richards consciously doing the same? 

However, the Greyfriars landscape, that has become so familiar though reading the Œuvre, starts by being familiar. Even the boy who has never been to Greyfriars has seen pictures of Eton and Harrow. From these roots, C. H. Chapman’s illustrations are, I am certain, a clever revocation and reworking of their architecture. Although Frank Richards was convinced the artists never read the story, the illustrations have become, by their presence within the text, an integral part of the Greyfriars landscape. The artist, who uses familiar places (and known to both Artist and reader) as the origins of his drawings, creates in the latter a feeling that he knows the fictional place, and, hence, the more readily, enters this ‘real’ landscape as does a willing, compliant, participant in the story. This autonomous and subconscious mechanism of personal recognition of fictional places thus almost becomes a realization of a Jungian primordial, protomemory whereby all readers, from this primeval tribal prememory, know where they are within the imagined landscape.

All around the fictional Greyfriars School there are, in reality, many archæological sites. For example, Mr Quelch takes the Remove on a walk to a Roman remains (either well or stone, if my memory serves!). While this spot is fictional, it probably derives from the Hengist Stone, which is not far from Frank Richards' own home – and, therefore, Greyfriars itself.

The buildings Frank Richards placed on His imagined landscape are, even if not immediately recognizable, vistas which one can create and see in one’s mind’s eye. They serve to remind the reader, as they do, of ‘bare ruined cloisters’,[19] ancient churches, old market places, open commons, as well as the great houses of the gentry.

All these common sights, and, indeed, sites, have a preconscious remembered structure and form. From personal knowledge and experience, this leads to an internally reconstructed vision by the reader.

The latter’s interpretation may be ‘wrong’ from the author’s view. But, does this matter? Probably not.

So long as the reader gains insight to the text, the imagery created by the reader through the author’s words must be accurate – to the reader. For example, we have all played the game of casting the characters in a favourite book for the stage or screen. Disagreement as to who is best for a particular rôle illustrates how we read a text differently. We probably arrive at the same ideological conclusions about the text. However, individual responses must, by different routes of interpretation – both visual and auditory – lead to alternative, and personal, conclusions. Each reader has a concept of the text created internally from reading the text and reworking it according to his personal philosophies and ideologies. The final reconstruct, therefore, must be different from person to person.

So long as ‘you’, the reader, comprehend and grasp the author’s concepts and ideologies and ‘see’ some of his landscape, the text must, surely, be considered to have succeeded in transmitting the author’s ‘message’.

All this familiarity must lead to the reader feeling more ‘at home’ within Greyfriars itself, as well as feeling more comfortable with the text. The enjoyment gained from this sense of belonging in the landscape, and not being a mere onlooker, is at least one reason that explains the enduring popularity of Frank Richards' works ninety years after Bunter first tripped over Harry Wharton as he entered upon the Greyfriars stage for the first time.[20]

 Endnotes: