During the centenary of A. A. Milne’s Pooh books, it seems appropriate to acknowledge Honor C. Appleton, illustrator of the once-famous Josephine series, whose color plates featured actual toys she owned. Cotsen’s holdings of Honor C. Appleton include the trunk, in which the surviving toys were stored, in addition to the books and examples of the original watercolors for Mrs. H. C. Cradock’s Josephine books. A. A. Milne’s One Hundred Acre Wood eventually eclipsed Josephine’s nursery, but the raffish lot of dolls and stuffed toys have an entirely different aura than Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore, Rabbit, Owl, Kanga, Roo, and Tigger projected. Here is an edited 2016 post written by then curatorial assistant Ian Dooley.
This unassuming canvas trunk holds the inspiration for some of the early 20th century’s most recognizable children’s book illustrations. It belonged to Honor C. Appleton (1879 – 1951), whose delicate watercolors are perhaps best known as reproductions as full page color plates in the work of her long-time collaborators.
A Photograph of Honor C. Appleton in round frame, ca. 1912-1914 (Cotsen 61179)
Appleton maintained long working relationships with two prolific authors, Mrs. H. C. Cradock (best known for her stories about a young girl named Josephine and her imaginative adventures with her dolls) and F. H. Lee (best known for the series “Children’s Bookshelf,” adaptations of classic literature for young readers).
Honor C. Appleton’s initials
The contents of the trunk allows us to gain special insight into the collaboration of Honor C. Appleton and Mrs. Cradock.
DOLLS!
When materials from the Appleton estate were first purchased for Cotsen, this trunk was full of dolls (long since been rehoused). Totaling thirteen dolls (not all shown above), all of them turn up in the illustrations following. They come in a variety of sizes and materials, but unfortunately we do not know much about the origin or manufacture of the dolls, though many seem homemade.
As you can tell, some are in far better shape than others.
Anyone familiar with Appleton’s illustrations for Cradock’s Josephine books will know why the dolls are relevant her artwork. But if you’re not, you’ll quickly spot in the trunk ones who served as models for characters in the stories. The four dolls below make recurring appearances in the Josephine books:
Four of Josephine’s dolls
The appearance of the dolls in Appleton’s illustrations are not identical to the real dolls, but the similarities are pretty clear.
Christabel bringing up the rear of the parade above, is missing her right arm and has black hair in the stories. The Margaret doll has a pink dress while her counterpart in the illustrations has a white dress (I was terrified to discover that both versions have loose wigs). 
Take the roguish Quacky Jack. Though time has not been kind to Josephine’s mischievous plaything, this real stuffed duck bears an undeniable likeness to his character in the books:
Vignette, page 35
The two horses in this plate bear no resemblance to the one in the trunk, which seems to be the model for the one in Peggy and Joan, another doll book Cradock and Appleton collaborated on.
(Cotsen 7332)
Peggy and Joan’s dolls
Using play things as a source of inspiration for an imaginative world in a children’s book no longer seems very innovative, but few authors and illustrators did so before the twentieth century. The way Appleton featured her stuffed toys and dolls in Cradock’s Josephine series beginning in 1916 predated by eight years her better known contemporaries, A. A. Milne and E. H. Shepard. Appleton’s trunk of stuffed animals and dolls in the Cotsen collection is a wonderful counterpart to Christopher Milne’s menagerie in the New York Public Library.
Children’s Center at 42nd St, The New York Public Library. “Kanga, Winnie-the-Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore and Tigger.” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1925. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/5e66b3e9-1aab-d471-e040-e00a180654d7
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