Shakespeare as Children’s Literature: Edwardian Retellings in Words and Pictures by Velma Bourgeois Richmond (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 545 "crisis of the book;' a "crisis in Christian thought concerning representation:' Yet in this time of crisis only a handful of examples warrant Kearney's considerationand only three of them properly belong to the literature of the English Reformation. This is not to say that the case for crisis is not made. The Incarnate Text marshals compelling theological and cultural evidence that the materiality ofbooks, especially books of sacred texts, posed a problem for those who distrusted the fallen material world, principally Protestants. His considerations of The Faerie Oueene, Doctor Faustus, and The Tempest properly register Protestant anxieties about Catholic artifacts, idolizing books, and textual (and religious) authority. I could not help but wonder whether a crisis in representation also existed on the Continent-both in Protestant and Catholic nations-or whether the crisis was only in England, where taking the via media the Reformation was often paradoxical and ambiguous. English people worshipped in churches named for saints while the Articles of Religion disavowed the invocation of saints. They heard vestment-clad clergymen preach homilies against images and ornamenting the temple of God while they sat in churches adorned with richly carved rood screens and stained glass. Indeed, Archbishop William Laud's efforts to resolve the ambiguities-the aesthetic of his "beauty of holiness"-led to the English Civil War.The degree that such ambiguities were deeply embedded in English culture suggests that approaching the literature of other English Renaissance writers using Kearney's hermeneutic strategy should prove rewarding. The Incarnate Text is a book that invites us to rethink the ways we think about Reformation England and English Renaissance Literature. It also offers readers a richly rewarding experience that provokes serious reflection on spiritual matters. Cyndia Susan Clegg Pepperdine University Shakespeare as Children's Literature: Edwardian Retellings in Words and Pictures. ByVelma Bourgeois Richmond. Jefferson, North Carolina and London: McFarland & Co, 2008. ISBN978-0-7864-3781-8. Pp. viii + 363. $35.00. I met Velma Richmond through her educational videotape A Prologue to Chaucer (1986), a valuable resource for teaching Chaucer and medieval literature to undergraduates because of its treasure trove of images and concise discussion of Chaucer, his works, and his age. Her dramatic opening was memorable: "I'm standing in Westminster Abbey near the tomb of Geoffrey Chaucer in what is known as Poet's Corner;' or words to that effect, with the camera angled to reveal the monuments to Chaucer (and to Shakespeare) over her shoulder. Together with her earlier books Shakespeare, Catholicism, and Romance (2000) and Chaucer as 546 CHRISTIANITY AND LITERATURE Children's Literature: Retellings from the Victorian and Edwardian Eras (2004), the present volume demonstrates that she is still very much in the "Poets' Corner:' She is well-qualified to guide readers through a catalogue of Shakespeare for children titles from a century ago. A medievalist, now professor of English emerita at Holy Names College, Oakland, Richmond began teaching a course in children's literature in 1979, and is a "passionate" collector of Victorian and Edwardian children's books, including most of the sixty-two books discussed (5-6). This book is dedicated to her husband, Berkeley Shakespearean Hugh Richmond, on their fiftieth anniversary, with whom she witnessed the first performance in the restored Globe theatre, London, on June 12, 1997 (322), and viewed a production there by her husband's students, among a lifetime ofShakespearean theatre attendance. Two papers on Shakespeare and children were read at Shakespeare conferences in 2006 (6). Her footnotes to the first chapter, on the history of children's literature, as does the extensive bibliography, attest to her mastery of the field of children's literature. She cites all the standard works from F.J. Harvey Darton to Peter Hunt. Finally, many of her examples describing published works for children include both Chaucer and Shakespeare, suggesting that research for her earlier Chauceras Children's Literature serves this study as well. Even Harry Potter enters the discussion thrice (12, 46, 179). Richmond resides in the "Poet's Corner;' despite limiting her defense of Shakespeare's importance to child readers to "retellings," prose versions ofhis work, for the purpose of contributing to "current efforts to defend English studies...