“The tender Tale must surely please.
If told with sympathetic ease;
Read, then, the Children in the Wood,
And you’ll be virtuous and good.”
But of all these “restorations”, none was a greater outrage than the attempt of a nursery moralist to rebuild the Enchanted Castle of Romance.
“The History of the Enchanted Castle; or, The Prettiest Book for Children” appeared in Francis Newbery’s list in 1777, and was reprinted for Harris early in the nineteenth century. On the title page it is further described as “the Enchanted Castle, situated in one of the Fortunate Isles and governed by the Giant Instruction. Written for the Entertainment of little Masters and Misses by Don Stephano Bunyano, Under-Secretary to the aforesaid Giant”.
The wheel has come full circle: folk-tales, ballads, romances, not one of the forms of popular literature has escaped. Here at last is the giant himself surrendering his stronghold to the moralist, delivering up captives and stolen, treasure, engaging Secretaries, and parcelling out the Enchanted Castle into a Picture Gallery, Museum and Library.
The parallel between the Giant Instruction and Giant Despair is sufficiently obvious; but the giant’s under-secretary, with official sagacity, turns it to account. He boldly proclaims himself “a distant relation of the famous John Bunyan, the pious and admired author of the Pilgrim’s Progress”, and proceeds to explain the symbolic pictures and curiosities in the Castle, after the manner of Mr. Interpreter.
Yet there is one rare thing among the oddities of this little book; a statement of aim which involves direct criticism of existing children’s books. This betrays the Giant’s intention to make children “as capable of thinking and understanding what is what (according to their years) as their Papas and Mammas, or as the greatest Philosophers and Divines in the whole Country”.