Kittens

In 1903 and 1904, W. W. Denslow designed a series of 18 picture books, published by the G.W. Dillingham company. Denslow’s Three Little Kittens is one of the 1904 titles.

Denslow’s take on the traditional nursery rhyme is similar to the style of stories written by L. Frank Baum in Mother Goose in Prose. Denslow was determined to remove any horrors from the tales, and made changes accordingly. In this case there really wasn’t any need of changes, but he did extend the story to include the kittens befriending a rat that they chase into the Glad Lands, where all animals live in peace.

The Glad Lands were previously mentioned in a Christmas cartoon Denslow drew in 1903, which was syndicated in several newspapers. You can click here to read a short blog post I wrote about it several years ago.

Here we have a drawing from this book, used as the interior rear cover, the final image in the book. It’s always interesting to see the difference between the original black & white drawing and the printed color version. The black & white piece is bolder and crisper than the turquoise & orange version seen in the book. But Denslow’s use of color in these books was in itself bold and new, with striking color choices and interesting composition. The block of orange ink in the background of the printed image is simply indicated as a rectangle in the drawing, focusing your eye more firmly on the two characters. In the book, the solid orange rectangle becomes the focus and the characters are secondary.