Jappie Chappie and how he loved a Dollie
Told and Illustrated by E. L. Shute
Frederick Warne & Co., 1887 (?) 18 pages (variable)
back cover
Lewis Carroll, i.e. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, had known Mrs. Shute (née Edith Letitia Hutchinson), since 1882; after her husband died in 1886, their friendship continued. See The Letters of Lewis Carroll, ed. Morton N. Cohen (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), vol. 2, 689-91, for more about the book and Dodgson's reaction to it. A note on 692-93 includes information about Shute's studio. The following passage is from a letter written by Dodgson to Mrs. Shute on Dec. 26, 1887:
I keep ordering batches of the Jappie book: and they flow out, in the direction of young (and sometimes old) friends, nearly as fast as they come in...when the final smash comes, it is to be hoped that the Report, of the proceedings in the Bankruptcy Court, will end like this.... "It is understood that an illustrated book, such as he was likely to buy in large quantities, had been most artfully prepared by a designing friend, and that the enormous outlay, into which he was thus drawn, was the chief cause of the catastrophe."
My copy of the book is a shaped book, showing Jappie on the front cover and Dollie on the back cover, each under a parasol, so that the top is cut out in two partial ellipses. The cover and pages are all of lightweight cardboard, or untearable linen as the cover proclaims. It includes 8 full-page color illustrations besides the covers; there are 10 pages of text, which appear to be hand-written in elegant printing. (A different copy which a friend photographed for me is rectangular, with slightly different contents.*) The text pages are full of little line drawings of Jappie, Dollie, Jappie's Japanese doll friend Chim-Pan-Zee, flowers, birds, rabbits, an insect, monkeys, and a monster.
Once there was in far Japan
A happy Jappie-Chappie;
He was a moon-faced little man
In garments loose and flappy.
He carried with him, only think,
It seems to us so funny!
A parasol, blue, black, and pink,
Whenever it was sunny.
One day he went to take the air
In weather warm and jolly,
And saw a sight that made him stare:
A lovely English Dollie!
He ne'er in all his Jappie days
Had seen eyes clearer, bigger;
He leant against a tree and gazed
At her retreating figure;
Then picked a bunch of Blue-tree flowers,
Went home, and thought of Dollie,
And gave up all his evening hours
To tender melancholy.
Next day, when the Jappie was combing his fringe,
The door of his bedroom revolved on its hinge;
Ha ha! said the friend who then poked in his head,
I expected to find my Moon-gazer in bed!
Oh yes, my dear Chappie, I heard you declare
To the moon--when you thought there was nobody there,
That for love you were dying, and soon would be dead,
If you weren't introduced to the Damsel in red.
But listen! --I know the fair Lady quite well;
Her hair's all her own; she's a real British Swell.
I will, if you like, introduce you to-day,
And you shall make love in your very best way.
They went along the street,
And oh! --how fast did beat
The heart of our jolly Japanee!
He nearly swooned away
When he heard the other say,
Miss Dollie, I have brought a friend with me.
Miss Dollie made a bow, --and Jappie he bent low;
Then he murmured, t'was a fine and sunny day,
Which Miss Dollie said was true; and the love within him grew
Stronger every minute till he went away.
At last after a week or so
Of daily visits long,
The Jappie-Chap did over flow
Into a burst of song.
He sat beyond the midnight hour
Making up rhymes so sweet,
Then laid these verses full of power,
At lovely Dollie's feet.
________________________
To Dollie
Beautiful Doll! thy hair doth flow
Softly down thy back like tow,
Large and glassy thy blue eyes are,
Star of all Dollies, beautiful Star!
Star of all Dollies, beautiful Star!
Beautiful Doll! Oh, be my Wife!
I will love you all my life,
Never go back to your home afar--
Star of this Jappie-Chap, beautiful Star!
Star of this Jappie-Chap, beautiful Star!**
__________________________
She read the Poem--then in scorn
She answered angrily:
Shall I, an English Dollie born
Marry a Japanee?
And for your wife you think I'd do?
A nice idea, that!
How could I e'er be seen with you,
Slit-eyed, moon-faced, and fat?
Begone! Away! never again
Presume to cross my sight! -- --
He hurried out with grief and pain,
In melancholy plight. -- --
He groaned all night long
Till the light strong
Ushered in the morrow,
Sobbed all day through,
Was a prey to
GLOOMY THOUGHTS OF SORROW.
The friend, his name was Chim-Pan-Zee,
Came in with jaunty air;
Come! Be a man, old boy, said he,
Don't let yourself despair
Because you cannot reach the goal
To which your fancy leads!
Have not our Maidens hair like coal,
Have they not eyes like beads?
But Jappie shook with sighs, and groaned, And groaned and shook with
sighs.
He wiped his dripping eyes, and moaned; And moaned and wiped his eyes.
Why, Jappie-Chappie, said his friend,
Trying another tone,
They'll think you've got some bones to mend,
If that's the way you groan.
Japanese ladies: a romantic alternative to English dollies
Get up, dear Sir, for goodness' sake!
Such conduct is mere folly,
You're making here a great mistake,
Faint heart ne'er won fair Dollie.
There are as good fish in the sea***
As any that are out;
Hundreds of pretty girls there be,
If you'll just look about.
At length his friend did check the flow
Of sobs and tears and talk,
And Jappie-Chappie said he'd go
And take a country walk.
Jappie, Dollie, and the monster
He walked along, dejected, slow,
As though t'was all a dream,
When, --suddenly, --he heard --Help! Ho!
And then an awful scream.
He turned and saw --Ye stars above!
A sight to make him pause--
The figure of his Lady love,
Between a monster's jaws!!!
Brave Jappie to that monster sped, --Oh plucky little fellow!
And beat him sorely on the head, --With his old pink umbrella.
You should have seen and heard him whack! --The monster dropped his
prey,
And to his lair rushed howling back, --Loud roaring all the way.
Jappie and Dollie together at last
Then Jappie-Chappie on his knees
Did cast himself with cries
Of, Oh my love, my Dollie, please
Re-open, dear, your eyes!
And Dollie looked at him, and then
(Blushing a lovely pink)
She said, You are the best of men,
The bravest, too, I think.
You've saved my life --no more I'll filirt,
So do not longer sorrow.
Dear Jappie-Chappie, I'm not hurt,
I'LL MARRY YOU TO MORROW.
* Thanks to Nikolai Mountian for his photographs a copy in the library of Florida State University Rare Books Collection. I now have my own copy. However, the FSU copy is somewhat different from mine. Since each of these has what must be original features which the other does not, I assume that both are adaptations of the original edition. I would guess that the original version of the book was square in shape with 11-12 text pages and 9 colored illustrations besides the covers.
- My copy is square and die-cut into a shape; the FSU copy is rectangular. The pictures on the FSU copy are sometimes cropped compared to the ones in my copy.
- On the front cover of mine, Jappie is shown from the front with an open parasol; on the FSU version front cover, we see Jappie both from the front and from the back, and his parasol is closed. Other design elements are different. FSU front cover.
- On the back cover of mine, Dollie is seen with an open parasol (as if standing back to back with Jappie on the front), with the title repeated; I don't know what the back cover of the FSU copy is like.
- Although the text is identical in the two copies, the pages are differently arranged. My copy has 10 text pages; the FSU copy has six, which include all the verses telling the story and some of the drawings, squeezed in two pages to one. In one case, however, the FSU copy has a text page with drawings which does not appear in my copy.
- In my copy, each opening of two pages except one shows an illustration facing a text page (the exception is at the center, which has two facing text pages); the inside front and back cover are text pages. In the FSU copy, 6 of the 8 illustrations face each other, and the inside covers are illustrations, not text.
- My copy has one illustration (of three Japanese ladies, presumably the romantic alternatives to Dollie) not in the FSU copy.
- The FSU copy has an illustration not in mine, of three cheering Chinese children telling Jappie to "be a star!" It is probably the inside back cover.
- To judge from the photos, the colors in the FSU copy are much more vivid. My copy is printed on durable linen and the colors are more yellowed and washed-out.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,***A chorus, "He's going to marry Yum-Yum," in Gilbert and Sullivan's 1885 musical play with a Japanese setting, The Mikado, uses this proverb. It is possible that Mrs. Shute was echoing, for adults, the pleasure of seeing this very English phrase spoken by a Japanese.
And sang to a small guitar,
"O lovely Pussy, O Pussy, my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!"