Tom Thumb - History

History

The tale of Tom Thumb is the first English fairy tale in print. The earliest surviving text is a 40-page booklet printed in London for Thomas Langley in 1621 entitled The History of Tom Thumbe, the Little, for his small stature surnamed, King Arthur's Dwarfe: whose Life and adventures containe many strange and wonderfull accidents, published for the delight of merry Time-spenders. The author is presumed to be Londoner Richard Johnson (1579–1659?) because his initials appear on the last page. The only known copy is in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York.

Tom was already a traditional folk character when the booklet was printed, and it is likely printed materials circulated prior to Johnson's. It is not known how much or exactly what Johnson contributed to Tom's character or his adventures. William Fulke referred to Tom in 1579 in Heskins Parleament Repealed and Thomas Nashe referred to him in 1592 in his prose satire on the vices of the age, Pierce Penniless, His Supplication to the Divell. In his Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584), Reginald Scot listed Tom among witches, dwarfs, elves, fairies, giants, and other supernatural folk as those used by servant maids to frighten children.

Tom was mentioned by James Field in 1611 in Coryat's Crudities: "Tom Thumbe is dumbe, untill the pudding creepe, in which he was intomb'd, then out doth peepe." The incident of the pudding was the most popular in connection with the character. It is alluded to in Ben Johnson's masque of the Fortunate Isles: "Thomas Thumb in a pudding fat, with Doctor Rat."

Johnson's History may have been in circulation as early as this date because the title page woodblock in the 1621 edition shows great wear. Johnson himself makes it clear in the preface that Tom was long known by "old and young...Bachelors and Maids...and Shepheard and the young Plow boy".

The tale belongs to the swallow cycle. Tom is swallowed by a cow, a giant, a fish, and in some extensions to Johnson's tale, by a miller and a salmon. In this respect, the tale shows little imaginative development. Tom is delivered from such predicaments rather crudely, but editors of later dates found ways to make his deliverance more seemly and he rarely passed beyond the mouth.

Tom's tale was reprinted countless times in Britain, and was being sold in America as early as 1686. In 1630 a metrical version entitled Tom Thumbe, His Life and Death: Wherein is declared many Maruailous Acts of Manhood, full of wonder, and strange merriments: Which little Knight liued in King Arthurs time, and famous in the Court of Great Brittaine was published. The book was reprinted many times, and, about 1700, two more parts were added to the first. The three parts were reprinted many times.

In 1711 William Wagstaffe published A Comment upon The History of Tom Thumbe. In 1730 English dramatist Henry Fielding used Tom Thumb as the central figure of a play by that name, which he rewrote in 1731 as The Tragedy of Tragedies, or the History of Tom Thumb the Great. A farcical take on the legend, the play is filled with 18th-century political and literary satire and is intended as a parody of heroic tragedies. The title of "The Great" may be intended as a reference to the politician Sir Robert Walpole, himself often called "The Great." Henry Fielding's tragedy Tom Thumb was the basis for an opera constructed by Kane O'Hara.

Fielding's Tom is cast as a mighty, although tiny, warrior and conqueror of giants, as well as the object of desire for many of the ladies at court. The plot is largely concerned with the various love triangles between the characters, who include the Princess Huncamunca, the giantess Glumdalca, and Queen Dollalolla (Arthur's wife in this version). Matters are complicated when Arthur awards Tom the hand of Huncamunca in marriage which results in Dollalolla and the jealous Grizzle seeking revenge. Eventually, Tom dies when swallowed by a cow, but his ghost returns. At the conclusion, Tom's ghost is killed by Grizzle and most of the cast kill each other in duels or take their own lives in grief.

Fielding's play was later adapted into a spoof on opera conventions called The Opera of Operas; or Tom Thumb the Great by playwrights Eliza Haywood and William Hatchett. This version includes a happy ending in which Tom is spat back out by the cow and the others are resurrected by Merlin's magic. This is considered to be a satirical comment on the unlikely and tacked-on nature of many happy endings in literature and drama.

In the middle 18th century books began appearing specifically for children, and Tom was cited as the author of titles such as Tommy Thumb's Song Book (1744) and Tommy Thumb's Little Story Book (c. 1760). In 1791 Ritson remarked that Tom's popularity was known far and wide: "Every city, town, village, shop, stall, man, woman, and child, in the kingdom, can bear witness to it."

Tom's story was originally intended for adults but by the middle-19th century it was relegated to the nursery. Vulgar episodes were sanitized and moralizing coloured the tale. In Charlotte Mary Yonge's 1856 adaptation, Tom resists his natural urges to play impish pranks, renounces his ties to Fairyland, and pronounces himself a Christian. As Mordred's rebellion wears on in the last days of Arthur's reign, Tom refuses to return to Fairyland, preferring to die as an honourable Christian.

In 1863, Dinah Maria Craik Mulock refused to cleanse the tale's questionable passages and let the story speak for itself. Mulock adds material and in her adaptation, Tom has adventures that again involve swallowing (by a miller and a salmon), being imprisoned in a mousetrap, angering King Thunston and his queen, and finally dying from the poisonous breath of a spider. Tom's tale has since been adapted to all sorts of children's books with new material added and existing material reworked, but his mischievous nature and his bravery remain undiminished.