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Bibliothèque de SuZette |
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Bibliothèque de Suzette is a children's book collection published in France between 1919 and 1965 by the publisher Gautier & Languereau. Its existence is strictly interconnected with that of La Semaine de Suzette.
In fact all the books of the collection started life as feuilletons in La Semaine de Suzette, a French illustrated weekly for well-to-do little girls, published by the same publisher from February 2nd 1905 until June 6th 1940 and from May 30th 1946 to August 25th 1960.
Each issue of La Semaine de Suzette which was aimed at an age range of 8-14, contained short stories, an episode of a serialized novel, an agony aunt column, games, cookery recipes, sewing patterns for the wardrobe of the doll Bleuette, a stylish French grand'mama of the yet to be born Barbie, competitions, crosswords, good manners and fashion features, in short anything deemed indispensable to make a proper little girl blossom into a proper grown up Madame, supporting manners and ıdeas already ingrained in the middle class milieu to which the readers belonged. It carried some discrete and tasteful advertising.
By today' s standards, it was a most gloriously politically incorrect magazine ... et alors!? ... to paraphrase Larkin, political correctness began well after nineteen-sixty-three.LES PETITES FILLES BIEN SAGES
Dominique Rolin
Photo Jean Rolin, 1924
courtesy François Nielsen ©
(click to enlarge)
1950
A charming family group with an attentive Suzette reader
courtesy JMC©
(click to enlarge)Witness the alluring poise of M.lle Dominique Rolin born 1913 in a well-to-do Belgian family caught by her father Jean reading Suzette in this delightful photo circa 1924. (courtesy Prof. François Nielsen, University of North Carolina, Miss Rolin's nephew) and the enchanting group of five little French brothers photographed (Suzette warrants!) on the 1st of June 1950 (courtesy JMC)
Amongst its readers La Semaine could boast children who became famous such as Michèle Morgan, André Malraux, Jeanne Moreau, Troyat, Sylvette Baudrot, Barjavel and others who in later years reminisced fondly about Suzette in books or interviews. On the other hand, Simone de Beauvoir relates in her memoirs that while the majority of children in her milieu read La Semaine, she had a subscription to L'Etoile Noeliste which her mother considered "d'un niveau moral plus élevé". As for Dominique Rolin, she became the acclaimed writer of more than forty books (see BNF).
The actress Michèle Morgan, in La Semaine de Suzette, 1952
Suzette had also two royal readers: the English Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret Rose. In July 1938 their governess Marion Crawford (the infamous Crawfie) subscribed for a year to Suzette through a London bookshop.
One of the most interesting features of the Semaine are the agony aunt columns, edited in succession by
Tante Jacqueline (Mme Berhnardt de La Roche, the very first aunt)
Tante Rolande (Mme Rolande Le Brun, born in 1880 in Paris, employed at G&L, in charge of advertising, a stopgap agony aunt, also wrote some features as Edna Lor. She remained at La Semaine until her death in 1939)
Tante Alice (Alice Piguet, b. 1 Sett. 1901 a.k.a Alice de Chavannes, a Law graduate rapporteur à la Commission de contrôle de la Presse juvénile)
Tante Mad (see Madeleine Giraud)
Tante Mireille (Géneviève Néranval, she started working as a secretary for Jean Valmy-Baysse Secrétaire Général de la Comédie Française , collaborated with the writer Madeleine Chaumont and became a brilliant poet and writer)
and the last, another Jacqueline, (Jacqueline Gaillard born 1934, eventually she became editor-in-chief at Les Veillées des Chaumières).After more than eighty years, the advice given to the little Suzettes makes appalling or appealing reading (whichever side of the divide one happens to be) all based on submission, blind obedience, reverence towards parents, through the complete annihilation of a child's personality, which — the message is — can only be moulded by the experience of the grown-ups, on middle class models of behaviour.
This is what Tante Rolande replies, on 16 December 1926 to a rebellious Libellule Verte, aged 14, who is asking for Tantine's help to convince her parents to let her 1) change her first name [...didn't we all at 14 wish to re-invent ourselves?...] — 2) cut her plaits — 3) get rid of nanny.
Not totally unreasonable desires for a girl of 14, one would imagine. Tantine's answer is a devastating blow to poor Libellule's hopes.Though highly prolific and successful in the genre — some winning prestigious literary prizes — with a few exceptions little is known about Suzette's authors who fell into more or less deserved oblivion (*)
At first glance Suzette's writers, editors and columnists — basically an in-house female team — seem upperclass or aristocratic women (their surnames are prefixed by a profusion of "de") who had received some sort of education, proto-feminists unhappy to be just glorified housewives.
İn reality the majority were middle-class "girls of slender means", more or less obliged to use their talent to earn a living or subsidize teaching jobs.
Most were single. Ashamed of their writing — any money making activity being socially unacceptable for a woman of the time — they hid under impenetrable male pseudonyms and were exploited shamelessly by their publishers (for instance G&L owned the copyright of its authors, except Marie Delly's) who dumped them when their style went out of fashion. Many died in abject poverty.The matter of the authors' identities was raised by a reader who in 2001 wrote to Les Veillées des Chaumière, (the big sister of La Semaine still going in 2005): « Les auteurs, les illustrateurs de la Semaine de Suzette m'intéressent. Qui étaient-ils ? Des femmes seules qui écrivaient pour gagner leur vie, des mères de famille qui avaient envie d'écrire, des professionnels ? Etaient-ce des salariés, attachés à la rédaction, ou bien des personnes qui travaillaient à la vacation ou au contrat. ? Comment choisissait-on les manuscrits ? etc. »
Surely no Balzacs, yet they write in an elegant polished French, still readable today. What made them fade into obscurity is certainly the context of their stories depicting the way of life of a limited section of society "univers de marquises et de baronnes menant grand train grâce à leurs rentes et à leurs fermages, et servies par une foule de domestiques"(cit. Hachette Jeunesse website) which started to disappear in 1914, its conduct dictated by strong Catholic principles, the result too anachronistic for a modern reader. However one feels that if not for their literary merits they should have been remembered for their contribution to the social history of the times.One of Gautier&Languereau's authors who stood the test of time and was financially successful is Berthe Bernage: Catholic, grande-dame of good manners, editor of Les Veillées des Chaumières, contributor to La Semaine, she created the character of Brigitte who first saw the light in 1925 as a serial in Les Veillées. Published in book format, Brigitte's adventures lasted 35 years following the protagonist from adolescence to maturity and are still very much in print and on sale.
Bernage who was unmarried, remained tied to G&L all her life, published in their various collections and on her death she made them her heirs.On the other hand, the illustrators, who much contributed to the success of Suzette, famous artists such as Avélot, Thiriet, Morin, Berty, Lorioux, Giffey, Le Rallic, Raffin, Zier, active in the artistic movements of the XX century not just as children illustrators became even more famous with the passing years, their work highly collectible.
In the first issue of La Semaine was born, almost by accident, one of the most enduring long lasting characters of the French bande dessinée: Bécassine, the Disaster Maid, the Queen of Malapropism, who continuously misunderstood her mistress' orders with hilarious results, interpreting life according to her own philosophy of little paysanne Brétonne.
"Pour quelles raisons la Semaine de Suzette est-elle incontestablement le premier périodique du genre?" asks «Polybiblion: Revue bibliographique universelle» in 1920 "Ces raisons sont multiples. D'abord elle comporte des illustrations fort nombreuses, en couleurs et en noir, très variées et très vivantes : les enfants aiment les images; leurs parents aussi, du reste. Puis le texte est irréprochable au double point de vue moral et religieux. Ajoutons que la note patriotique résonne fréquemment dans cet ensemble toujours attachant"
These multiple good reasons were going to last for another forty-five years.***
Suzette n°27, 1926
Mme Rolande Le Brun signed the feature on good manners
under the pseudo Edna Lor
For those long summer terms, 1924(*) The life of some of the authors of Bibliothèque de Suzette has been sketchily put together in www.bibliothequedesuzette.com/BMR/AUTORI.htm
BEFORE AND AFTER
OR
The disciplinary effect of Suzette on unruly juveniles
(from L'Ouvrier, February 1905)
Look!... Rover, Pussy and Bleuettes are behaving tooLa Petite Poste
Cathol. bon. famille only need reply.
(La Semaine de Suzette no 39, 27 sett. 1928)
1952 and Cathol. bon. fam. pen-pals are still de riguer
(From La Semaine de Suzette, 1952)
In May 1917, La Petite Poste was suspended for security reasons by order of the Military Government.
"cette mesure, sévère d'ailleurs, vise la quantité encore trop grande d'espions, qui malgré la vigilance du gouvenment sont restés en France".
Urgent announcements could still be published with the approval of the police.The same measures applied during WWII
A crossword for little ladies au fait
from Le livre de Suzette, 1948
solution
La Semaine de Suzette, 25th November 1926
announcing the book publication of a serialized story.
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The first episode of
La Tutelle de Cousine Linotte by Berthe Bernage in La Semaine de Suzette 3rd August 1926.
The book version appeared in 1931 |
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Jerry dans l' Ombre by
Madeleine Giraud
in La Semaine de Suzette, May 1946 and in Bibliothèque de Suzette, 1948. Jerry dans l'ombre was the novel serialised in La Semaine when it reappeared in a four pages format after the war in May 1946: "Un événement
important pour toutes les petites filles ! Après six ans
d'interruption LA SEMAINE DE SUZETTE reparait provisoirement deux
fois par mois"
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Not all Suzette feuilletons were published in volume, for instance (in bracket the years in which they were serialized) |
Le charmeur des serpents by Léon Lambry (1919) A la conquete de l'Atlas by Myriam Catalany (1919) Les péripéties des petites Dalsie by Pierre Bresbre (1920) Jocelyne ou la petite fille qui voulut voir l'éxposition by B. Bernage (1926) Une bien bonne idée by G. Louza (1929) Musette by M. de Carnac (1929) La petite fille de Sainte-Hélène by E. de Cys et J. Rosmer (1929) Histoire Véridique de M.me Chelmi et de son Chat, by P Perrault (1929) |
In France, La Semaine has become the subject of quite a few graduation papers (Thèse de Doctorat or Maîtrise). The vast narrative body of Semaine & Bibliothèque is a fertile ground for a sociological or historical analysis of many aspects of life during the sixty years of their existence, to name a few: means of transport, fashion, food, games, holidays, war, religion, homes, etc.
La Semaine de Suzette dans l’entre-deux-guerres, VINCENT Véronique, Maîtrise, Histoire, Université de Paris X- Nanterre.
La Semaine de Suzette ou le Journal des petites filles bien élevées, COUDERC Marie-Anne*, Université de Toulouse Le Mirail, 1992
La représentation de la première guerre mondiale dans les histoires en images de deux grands périodiques pour enfants : L'Epatant et La Semaine de Suzette (1914-1918), PALUEL-MARMONT Julie, 1999, Université François Rabelais-Tours
L'influence de la Grande Guerre sur un illustré pour enfants: "La Semaine de Suzette" (1905-1918), GARDENER Thierry, 1994, Université de Paris X-Nanterre
La Semaine de Suzette: sources et lectures, GAUCHET-PLAT, Hélène, Maîtrise Lettres, Université de Paris X-Nanterre*Mme Couderc has also published two books on La Semaine:
Bécassine inconnue, CNRS ÉDITIONS, 2000
La Semaine de Suzette, Histoires de filles, CNRS ÉDITIONS, 2005
Sixty years of Suzette
The first Suzette no1, 1905
1915
1936
1948
1956no 2, June 1960...mais il n'y aura pas de rentrée
BIBLIOTHÈQUE DE SUZETTE TRANSLATIONS
The books have been translated in Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, English and Turkish.
In Portuguese:
The majority translated by Rachel de Queiroz, an icon of Portuguese Literature
In Brazil all the Suzettes appeared in the collection Coleção Menina e MoçaBOURCET M., A princesa de nieve, Trad.Gulnara Lobato de Morais Pereira y A M Martins, ed. J. Olympio, R. Janeiro, 1954
BRUYÈRE, André: Os Robinsons da montanha (1948, Rachel de Queiroz).
CATALANY M., A prisioneira do subterrâneo misterioso.
CATALANY M., A viagem de Mimosa, Versâo de Preto Pacheco, Porto, 1927, Barbosa, Patricio et Cª
CHAMBON MARIE (DONAL M.) Senhorita Indesejavel, Rio de Janeiro, J. Olympio, 1947.
DOMBRE, Roger: A heranca do cigano, trad. Estrada Ligia, Rio de Janeiro, J. Olympio, 1948
DONAL, Mario: O quarto misterioso e Congresso de bonecas (1947, Rachel de Queiroz).
GIRAUD, Mad H.: Sir Jerry na Bretanha. Trad. de Gulnara Lobato de Morais Pereira, J. Olympio, 1947.
GIRAUD, Mad H.: O misterioso desaparecimento de Sir Jerry. Rio de Janeiro, J. Olympio, 1948.
GIRAUD, Mad H.: O desaparecimento de Sir Jerry, ed Portugalia, 1966
GIRAUD, Mad H.: As estranhas ferias de Sir Jerry. Rio [de Janeiro] J. Olympio, 1947.
GIRAUD, Mad H.: Sir Jerry e o incrivel Leonardo, Lisboa : Portugália, imp. 1966
LA CONTRIE, M. D'AGON de: Aventuras de Carlota (1947, Rachel de Queiroz).
LOISEL, Y.: A casa dos cravos brancos (1947, Rachel de Queiroz)
NALIM: O misterio de Kerjonc, Editora Olympio, Colecao Menina e Moca, 1947.
PERONNET Mme. Charles, A Pequena Refugiada, ed Coleção Menina e Moça, 1954 (Jeanne, Jeannette et Jeanneton)
POSKIN Fernand, As Aventuras de Odete, Biblioteca das Raparigas, 1965
ROSMER, Jean: A afilhada do imperador (1950, Rachel de Queiroz).
SAILLY, Suzanne: A deusa da tribo (1950, Rachel de Queiroz).
VERDAT, Germaine: A conquista da torre misteriosa (1948, Rachel de Queiroz).
WILLEMS, Raphaelle: A predileta (1950, Rachel de Queiroz).
Coleção Menina e Moça — Editora Olympio - Ed. hard cover
Bourcet
A Princesa De Neve
Bourcet
O Segredo Da Torre 1947
Bruyère
O Tesouro Maravilhoso
Donal
Nanette, Acendedora De Lampeões
1947
Dombre
Memórias De Um Gato Aventureiro
Donal
O Quarto Misterioso
Duché
Os Louros Fantasmas De Soudrac
1947
Giraud
O Inevitável Sir Jerry 1947
Giraud
Sir Jerry Detetive
1954
Giraud
As Estranhas Ferias De Sir Jerry
Verdat
À Conquista Da Torre Misteriosa
Saint-Ogan
O Segredo Do Velho Martin
1947
Nalim
O Mistério de Kerjonc
Giraud
Sir Jerry na Bretanha
Donal
Senhorita Indesejavel
Saint-Ogan
O exilio de SolangeColeção Menina e Moça — Editora Olympio — dustjackets
some covers do not correspond to the original French title, others were re-designed, others were used for more than one volume (see Kerjonc/Princesse de Neige)
(NOTE for Portuguese speaking readers: these volumes were offered by
MERCADO LIVRE, Brazil, in Jan 2008)
In Spanish:
The majority published by Escelicer, in Madrid & Cadiz in Biblioteca de Lecturas Ejemplares, translated by Carolina Toral PeñarandaAMESTOY, A. El lagarto azul, il. de Alfonso Ros, Edit. Escelicer, 1948, n39
BERNAGE, B.: Historia de tres niñas y un pierrot, Escelicer, Madrid, 1949 n16
BOURCET, M.: La heredera de Ferlac, ESCELICER 1955, n141
BOURCET, M.: La estrella del Castillo, Escelicer, 1955, vol. 39
BRUYERE A.: ¿Dónde está el tesoro?, Buenos Aires, Editorial Camino, 1942
BRUYERE A.: Verdes y azules
BRUYERE A: Bandos Rivales
DOMBRE R., La herencia del bohemio, M. Roig y Cisa, s.d., Barcelona, 1924 Ill MAITREJEAN.
CARNAC, M. De, La Dama Rosa, 1955, n143
CARNAC, M. De, La caseta de la playa, Escelicer. Madrid. 1951, n91
CATALANY Myriam, Colibrí - n°29, Escelicer 1947 [1947, 1948 & 1955]
CATALANY Myriam, El viaje de Mimosa, 1948
GIRAUD MAD.H., Sir Jerry detective, Versión de Carolina Toral, 1961, N191
de KERANY L., Quiero ser Marquesa. EDITORIAL BLANCA
NAST Colette, El tutor de Caracas, traductor A. Muñoz Escámez, 1958, N169
RIVIÈRE Bertrande de, En casa de tia Pamela trad. de A. Muñoz-Escamez, 1959, n103
RIVIÈRE JACQUELINE, El caserio del tesoro perdido, Ed. Difusion, 1947
RENAUD Denyse, Hermanas gemelas, trad. de María del Carmen Cerón, 1958, n114, 10º millar
TRAMOND, Renée, Las aventuras de Arlette en el Niger, trad. de A. Muñoz, Edit. Escelicer. 1952. 5. Millar. Biblioteca de Lecturas Ejemplares n 108In Turkish:
CATALANY M.: Brahma'nin Gözü, ed. MORPA KÜLTÜR YAYINLARI, (tit. orig. P'tit Oiseau), Istanbul, 2003
In English:
J. ROSMER (Comtesse De Brahm): The Princess and the Gypsy: A Tale of Old Spain, trad.Virginia Olcott, ill. Marguerite De Angeli, Lippincott, 1938.In Italian:
In the Thirties two Italian publishers, MARIETTI and SALANI acquired the publication rights of Bibliothèque de Suzette.MARIETTI published about twenty titles between 1932 and 1935. SALANI published sixty, between 1931 and 1959, the foundation of their own children books collection called BIBLIOTECA DEI MIEI RAGAZZI
(Sources: Anne des Déserts, BNF, La Semaine de Suzette, TRAÇA, Brazil)
Unless otherwise stated, photographic material ©Hachette Livre/Gautier Languereau, from BNF
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