Unhampered by any such classical limitations as dramatic unities, or even such customary necessities

as the laws of gravity, common sense, and possibility, the animated drawing is the only

artistic medium ever discovered which is really free, and this in spite of the fact that it is

only an eight-minute tidbit thrown in at the end of a love drama while the audience is being

changed. Author and critic Creighton Pete, reviewing Felix the Cat cartoons in the New Republic

in 1929.

Welcome to the history of the 20th century.

Music Episode 287, an eight-minute tidbit.

The concept of telling a story through a sequence of pictures,

with perhaps a little bit of written narration above or below,

dates back to at least the Middle Ages.

Think of the bio-tapestry, for example.

The first books published for children began to appear in the 18th century. Over the course of the

19th century, as middle class incomes and the numbers of literate children both grew, so did the demand for children's books,

so that by the late 19th century, children's literature was a recognized literary genre.

And children's literature is a topic I want to come back to in a future episode.

But for today, I want to talk not about the literature, but about the

pictures. From their earliest days, children's books included illustrations, which were meant to

keep younger readers engaged, even though illustrations in novels and stories for adults are

comparatively rare, even in our time.

By the beginning of the 20th century, top-of-the-line books for children included lavish, full-color

illustrations, and even the cheaper ones included at least a few cute black-and-white line drawings.

...