Doll Books
popular. They take on a variety of roles in the stories, according to the demands
of the narrative: stand-ins or models for their child-owners, practice infants and
children for the mothers-to-be, playmates and comforting friends. Fashion dolls
appear as aspirational figures, the cultured adult women their owners hoped to become.
And as plot devices, dolls are used as prized possessions, sources of conflict, and loci of loss
and mourning — just like real children.
In the often printed, and enthusiastically translated, La
Poupée Bien Élevée, published in the original French by 1818
and in English by 1819, the “well-bred” doll is shared by a
pair of sisters. Their mother commands them to teach the
doll manners and morals by both instruction and example,
with the older girl pretending to be Mama and the younger
speaking for the “daughter” doll.
The unnaturally virtuous Mary also takes care of her doll,
putting it carefully to bed and teaching it to pray and to
read. Fanny’s fashion doll is a mechanical marvel: she can
open and close her eyes, say Mamma and Papa, and even
walk. The family’s trip to India, where the author, Laura
Valentine had grown up, provides a brief glimpse of British
colonialism. The London Doll recounts her creation by a
master doll maker; the disaster of falling into the fire only
to be scraped clean, repainted, and re-clothed; her time
in a Punch and Judy show; and many other extraordinary
adventures.
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Mallès de Beaulieu, Madame (Jeanne Sylvie). La poupée bien élevée. Paris: Chez Lecerf,
Graveur, Libraire, Rue du Petit Point, no. 18, c. 1850.
Mallès de Beaulieu, Madame (Jeanne Sylvie). The Well-Bred Doll. London: David Bogue,
86 Fleet Street, 1853.
The History of Mary and Her Doll, or, A Present for a Good Girl: An Interesting Tale for
Children. London: Published by A.K. Newman, 1812.
Valentine, Laura, attributed. The Life of a Doll. London: Frederick Warne & Co., c. 1865.
Horne, Richard H., and Margaret Gillies, illustrator. Memoirs of a London Doll, Written by
Herself. London: Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden, 1855.