Letters to Katie
Okay, team. This week’s pick just about counts as a step toward my new year’s resolve to read more nonfiction. I slipped in that qualifier because Edward Burne-Jones’s highly imaginative Letters to Katie could hold their own among even the most compelling narrative fiction.
You’re likely to recognize Burne-Jones as one of the stars among the Pre-Raphaelite constellation of nineteenth-century painters, who produced works that pondered classical mythology and the days of King Arthur and his chivalric ilk. His relationship with Katie Lewis, while having nothing to do with romance or myth, is an intriguing one nonetheless, especially as evidenced by this collection (officially titled Letters to Katie from Edward Burne-Jones and published for the second time by the British Museum in 1988).
Katie Lewis was the youngest daughter of Burne-Jones’s close friend, the solicitor and baronet George Lewis. Long before Burne-Jones became a successful painter, he made a habit of illustrating his letters. And Katie, by all accounts a precocious child who dubbed her family’s artist friend “Mr. Beak,” was the lucky recipient of a string of these letters from 1882 (when she was aged 4) until Burne-Jones’ death in 1898.
Clearly Burne-Jones felt just a wee bit more than a paternal fascination with Katie, at times speaking to her childishly to gain her childish sympathies and at others speaking to her as if she were his peer. He knew just how to turn even the smallest intimacy into a charming inside jest, such as in Letter XIV, where he writes to Katie about a litter of newborn pigs:
Well–what do you think?
it has had ten little ones. and i don’t know if they are scarfs and i don’t know what to call them
and each must have a name and i don’t think there are ten names in the alphabet
and they all want winding up like their mama — and squeal if they are not wound up — and it takes such a time — their names will be
1. Smith
2. Jezebel
3. Dinah
4. Bill
5. Winder
6. Friday
7. Piccadilly
8. Patience
9. You
10. me
A note on the text tells us that Katie mistakenly called a “calf” a “scarf.” But even if you didn’t know that, there’s no mistaking the letter is built upon the imaginary bond that existed between Burne-Jones and Katie. And most of what he writes is pure fantasy.
Many of the letters are loaded with double-meaning, because surely Burne-Jones meant for the correspondence to be read by Katie’s parents. Hence their literary appeal. I think my favorite on this score is one in which Burne-Jones describes buying a doll to compete with Katie’s. When he has the doll’s frocks made by Madame Elise in Regent Street, the doll begins putting on airs and getting ideas above her station and Burne-Jones no longer knows how to cope with her. A timeless conundrum…
Sadly, this collection is no longer in print, though second-hand copies are fairly easy to find. I’d highly recommend keeping your eyes open for one.
Happy reading,
Elizabeth Frengel
