Ludwig Bemelmans (review)

So energetic and enterprising was Ludwig Bemelmans throughout his entire life that, not long before he died, he had requested that the words Tell Them It Was Wonderful ¹ be inscribed on his tombstone (7). The “wonder” of Bemelmans’s life and work is precisely what one will discover when perusing Jackie Eastman’s highly readable treatise on the œuvre of a man endeared to us as the creator of Madeline, that unconventional, high-spirited yet vulnerable red-haired girl.

Bemelmans, a man who had a comic flair, was ranked as one of the “Stars Breaking Through” by Vogue magazine in 1939, along with the likes of Abbot and Costello, Katherine Anne Porter, and Greer Garson (4). Also an artist and writer, he did not mean to limit his children’s books to the child reader, Eastman says, but rather, he intentionally directed his children’s works to an adult audience as well. It is upon this contention—that much of Madeline’s success can be attributed to Bemelmans’s intent to reach both audiences—that Eastman builds her thesis.

In structuring her argument, Eastman first outlines Bemelmans’s career, identifying his success as a humorist, satirist, caricaturist, and prolific author-artist. She then deals with the books published by Bemelmans prior to Madeline, the Madeline series itself, and books published post-Madeline. She concludes with a discussion of Madeline’s sustained popularity in the 1990s and ascribes classic status to the series, particularly Madeline, as a “work that is read and known by a great many people over many years” (117).

Eastman carries her primary argument of dual readership through the first half of her book, using subtitles to make it clear when she is focusing on Bemelmans’s appeal to adults. These subheadings disappear when she critiques the five sequels to Madeline, slightly disorienting the reader, who expected the pattern to continue. Instead, her commentary is embedded within the discussion of each book. This idiosyncrasy set aside, Eastman holds firmly to her thesis—examining Bemelmans’s intent to make his work visible and consequently profitable.

Of special interest to readers are the references to correspondence between Jackie Eastman and Madeleine Bemelmans, Ludwig’s wife, particularly those in which the complexities and contradictions within the man are revealed. Equally interesting is Eastman’s description of the working relationship between Bemelmans and May Massee of Viking Press, who was instrumental in “discovering” Bemelmans and involving him in juvenile publishing. Eastman was privileged to be the first to make use of their correspondence, which spans a thirty-year relationship. She particularly notes Bemelman’s willingness to see his work through Massee’s eyes. Bemelmans respected Massee’s opinion and asked for it on occasion; even when he took on the first printing of Madeline himself without her support and direction because she had declined the manuscript. These references not only give credence to Eastman’s speculations about Bemelmans’s work, they also give a rare insight into how he worked and afford the reader some intimacy with the man and the artist.

As for her argument that Bemelmans strove for adult acceptance of his works and intended to please adults as well as children, Eastman indicates that, with the exception of Madeline and the Bad Hat, he published all of Madeline’s adventures (and nearly all his books for children) in adult periodicals before they came out in book form. These stories, Madeline’s Rescue, for one, were not listed in a magazine’s children’s section but in stories and features sections, thus clearly appealing to an older audience (63). It was in this way, as well as with gallery showings of original art and other promotions and exhibitions, that Bemelmans achieved high visibility for his work and “enticed” grownups to read his children’s books.

Other evidence Eastman cites as indicative of Bemelmans’s appeal to an adult audience is his breaking of the picture frame in the endpapers to create a distance between story and reality—between illusion and reality; his use of Trompe l...