The World Is Round Read online

  DEDICATION

  CONTENTS

  DEDICATION

  FOREWORD

  Thacher Hurd

  THE WORLD IS ROUND

  1 ROSE IS A ROSE

  2 WILLIE IS WILLIE

  3 EYES A SURPRISE

  4 WILLIE AND HIS SINGING

  5 WILLIE AND HIS LION

  6 IS A LION NOT A LION

  7 ROSE AND WILLIE’S LION

  8 ROSE THINKING

  9 A FAVORITE COLOR

  10 BRINGING BILLIE BACK

  11 BRINGING BACK BILLIE TO WILLIE

  12 ONCE UPON A TIME

  13 A CHAIR ON THE MOUNTAIN

  14 THE GOING UP WITH THE CHAIR

  15 THE TRIP

  16 THIS WAS HER TRIP

  17 UP THE HILL

  18 DAY AND NIGHT

  19 THE NIGHT

  20 THE NIGHT

  21 NIGHT

  22 ROSE SAW IT CLOSE

  23 NIGHT

  24 THE MORNING

  25 THE TREES AND THE ROCKS UNDER THEM

  26 ROSE DOES SOMETHING

  27 ROSE AND THE BELL

  28 ROSE AND THE BELL

  29 ONCE UPON A TIME

  30 THE GREEN GRASS MEADOW

  31 THE LAST HOUR

  32 THERE

  33 A LIGHT

  34 THE END

  AFTERWORD

  THE WORLD IS NOT FLAT

  Edith Thacher Hurd

  ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

  COPYRIGHT

  ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

  Clement Hurd drawing, Ferrisburgh, Vermont, 1939.

  FOREWORD

  FIRST published in 1939, Gertrude Stein’s The World Is Round has a fresh, modernist feeling that is seldom found in children’s books today and remains avant-garde in its precocious notions of what such books can be.

  Is The World Is Round really a children’s book? Do children adore it? Many find its radical use of language a difficult read, as I did when I first opened its pages at age ten, although I loved the brilliance of the solid rose-is-a-rose-is-a-rose-is-a-rose pink pages as well as the intensity of the deep blue type and my father’s illustrations. There was a mysterious quality to the art unlike any I had seen before.

  When you hear The World Is Round read out loud and really listen to it, it’s music: an edgy composition with unexpected twists and backtracks of sound and sense. Experiencing the book this way, you feel the richness of its language, with its gorgeous juxtapositions of words and phrases, its surprising rhymes and repetitions, and a sense of humor that shines through at unexpected moments.

  Over the years there have been several reissues of the book. The first came about on a single summer afternoon in Vermont in the 1960s, the result of a rethinking of its layout and design by my father, Clement Hurd, and the original editor and publisher, William R. Scott. My father redid the illustrations, which he had originally created in pen and ink, this time using linoleum blocks and driftwood to create a looser look. The solid pink pages and blue type were discarded in favor of white pages and more readable black type. Some of the mystery of the art was lost in this translation, but my father’s new illustrations show a more relaxed interpretation of the story.

  Clement and Edith Hurd, North Ferrisburgh, Vermont, 1949.

  In the 1980s, Andrew Hoyem, the founder of Arion Press and a good friend of my father’s, decided to create a fine press version. The book itself was round, housed in a pink square paper box, with a second, square book nested below it. That book contained the essay “The World Is Not Flat,” written by my mother, Edith Thacher Hurd. Her essay explains the story of how The World Is Round came to be, discusses the collaboration between my father and Gertrude Stein, and includes some of their correspondence.

  With the current edition, The World Is Round has come full circle: it’s sized in the same proportions as the original book and replicates its typography, design, and color exactly. That beautiful intense pink, a rose of the most seductive hue, paired with Stein’s favorite deep blue re-creates the book exactly as she and my father envisioned it, but also includes my mother’s essay from the Arion edition.

  The World Is Round proved to be one of the high points of my father’s career. His work on this book was really only matched by his collaboration with Margaret Wise Brown (who was much influenced by Stein’s writing) in creating both The Runaway Bunny (1942) and Goodnight Moon (1947).

  My father created the illustrations for the book in his studio in the village of North Ferrisburgh, Vermont, where he had bought an old farmhouse for $600 in 1936. When my parents moved in, there was no electricity or running water, but they slowly renovated the place, transforming it into a cozy home with wide pine floorboards, a Victorian potbellied stove in the living room, and a copious vegetable garden. After they had lived there for a few years, a friend from nearby Lake Champlain gave them a small, old barn, which arrived in pieces. My father reassembled the structure and had it moved to a hill behind the house, and used it as his studio year-round.

  As a young child I used to climb the hill to visit him when he was working, and I reveled in the smell of paints as well as the profusion of papers and paintings everywhere. That primal experience of seeing my father work deeply influenced me, and I later decided to become an artist. My parents also collaborated on many children’s books, which my mother wrote and my father illustrated. There was a feeling of creativity and aliveness in the house that was irresistible to me.

  My father worked singlemindedly on the pictures for The World Is Round in that musty studio; he was inspired by Stein’s imaginative story, and eager and excited to create something fantastic, to make the most of an unusual opportunity with Stein, the often-called “Mother of Modernism.” This project gave him a chance to develop his ideas and explore in depth the styles of painting he had learned during the several years he had spent studying in Paris with Fernand Léger, among others.

  In 1986, years after my parents had moved away, my family paid a visit to the North Ferrisburgh house. My father was too ill with Alzheimer’s to join us, but my mother, my wife, Olivia, our children, some friends, and I traveled down the winding dirt road to the house, where it sat in the middle of a field, its wide front lawn leading down to the river where I had swum happily as a child.

  Mrs. Rowe, the woman who had bought the house from my parents in 1954, graciously showed us around. The kitchen had been remodeled a bit, but as we walked through the rest of the house we were amazed to see that most of it hadn’t been touched: it was as if my parents had moved out the day before.

  On the second floor, a watercolor of my father’s hung exactly where it had when I was a child. In the bathroom, the walls were still covered with the brilliant pink wallpaper that had been created based on The World Is Round illustrations. A pink bathroom all around, with Rose and Willie splashed across the walls.

  Edith, Thacher, and Clement Hurd, 1949.

  Thacher and Clement Hurd, Berkeley, California, 1983.

  My father had also wallpapered the front stairwell with large proof sheets from his books from the 1930s and 1940s. One of them was a full proof sheet from Goodnight Moon, looking a little the worse for wear, as if a mouse had chewed off one of the lower corners. Mrs. Rowe had papered over the tear with the cover of a magazine for cat lovers.

  The visit was magical—a glimpse into my father’s world, perfectly preserved as if it were in a museum, a window into the creative life that brought forth the art that complements Stein’s imaginative text. Today, more than seventy years after its first publication, The World Is Round lives again in all its freshness and original beauty.

  —Thacher Hurd

  1

  ROSE IS A ROSE

  Once upon a time the world was round and you
could go on it around and around.

  Everywhere there was somewhere and everywhere there they were men women children dogs cows wild pigs little rabbits cats lizards and animals. That is the way it was. And everybody dogs cats sheep rabbits and lizards and children all wanted to tell everybody all about it and they wanted to tell all about themselves.

  And then there was Rose.

  Rose was her name and would she have been Rose if her name had not been Rose. She used to think and then she used to think again.

  Would she have been Rose if her name had not been Rose and would she have been Rose if she had been a twin.

  Rose was her name all the same and her father’s name was Bob and her mother’s name was Kate and her uncle’s name was William and her aunt’s name was Gloria and her grandmother’s name was Lucy. They all had names and her name was Rose, but would she have been she used to cry about it would she have been Rose if her name had not been Rose.

  I tell you at this time the world was all round and you could go on it around and around.

  Rose had two dogs a big white one called Love, and a little black one called Pépé, the little black one was not hers but she said it was, it belonged to a neighbor and it never did like Rose and there was a reason why, when Rose was young, she was nine now and nine is not young no Rose was not young, well anyway when she was young she one day had little Pépé and she told him to do something, Rose liked telling everybody what to do, at least she liked to do it when she was young, now she was almost ten so now she did not tell every one what they should do but then she did and she told Pépé, and Pépé did not want to, he did not know what she wanted him to do but even if he had he would not have wanted to, nobody does want to do what anybody tells them to do, so Pépé did not do it, and Rose shut him up in a room. Poor little Pépé he had been taught never to do in a room what should be done outside but he was so nervous being left all alone he just did, poor little Pépé. And then he was let out and there were a great many people about but little Pépé made no mistake he went straight among all the legs until he found those of Rose and then he went up and he bit her on the leg and then he ran away and nobody could blame him now could they. It was the only time he ever bit any one. And he never would say how do you do to Rose again and Rose always said Pépé was her dog although he was not, so that she could forget that he never wanted to say how do you do to her. If he was her dog that was alright he did not have to say how do you do but Rose knew and Pépé knew oh yes they both knew.

  Rose and her big white dog Love were pleasant together they sang songs together, these were the songs they sang.

  Love drank his water and as he drank, it just goes like that like a song a nice song and while he was doing that Rose sang her song. This was her song.

  I am a little girl and my name is Rose, Rose is my name.

  Why am I a little girl

  And why is my name Rose

  And when am I a little girl

  And when is my name Rose

  And where am I a little girl

  And where is my name Rose

  And which little girl am I am I the little girl named Rose which little girl named Rose.

  And as she sang this song and she sang it while Love did his drinking.

  Why am I a little girl

  Where am I a little girl

  When am I a little girl

  Which little girl am I

  And singing that made her so sad she began to cry.

  And when she cried Love cried he lifted up his head and looked up at the sky and he began to cry and he and Rose and Rose and he cried and cried and cried until she stopped and at last her eyes were dried.

  And all this time the world just continued to be round.

  2

  WILLIE IS WILLIE

  Rose had a cousin named Willie and once he was almost drowned. Twice he was almost drowned.

  That was very exciting.

  Each time was very exciting.

  The world was round and there was a lake on it and the lake was round. Willie went swimming in the lake, there were three of them they were all boys swimming and there were lots of them they were all men fishing.

  Lakes when they are round have bottoms to them and there are water-lilies pretty water-lilies white water-lilies and yellow ones and soon very soon one little boy and then another little boy was caught right in by them, water-lilies are pretty to see but they are not pretty to feel not at all. Willie was one and the other little boy was the other one and the third boy was a bigger one and he called to them to come and they, Willie and the other boy they couldn’t come, the water-lilies did not really care but they just all the same did not let them.

  Then the bigger boy called to the men come and get them they cannot come out from the water-lilies and they will drown come and get them. But the men they had just finished eating and you eat an awful lot while you are fishing you always do and you must never go into the water right after eating, all this the men knew so what could they do.

  Well the bigger boy he was that kind he said he would not leave Willie and the other behind, so he went into the water-lilies and first he pulled out one little boy and then he pulled out Willie and so he got them both to the shore.

  And so Willie was not drowned although the lake and the world were both all round.

  That was one time when Willie was not drowned.

  Another time he was not drowned was when he was with his father and his mother and his cousin Rose they were all together.

  They were going up a hill and the rain came down with a will, you know how it comes when it comes so heavy and fast it is not wet it is a wall that is all.

  So the car went up the hill and the rain came down the hill and then and then well and then there was hay, you know what hay is, hay is grass that is cut and when it is cut it is hay. Well anyway.

  The hay came down the way it was no way for hay to come anyway. Hay should stay until it is taken away but this hay, the rain there was so much of it the hay came all the way and that made a dam so the water could not go away and the water went into the car and somebody opened the door and the water came more and more and Willie and Rose were there and there was enough water there to drown Willie certainly to drown Willie and perhaps to drown Rose.

  Well anyway just then the hay went away, hay has that way and the water went away and the car did stay and neither Rose nor Willie were drowned that day.

  Much later they had a great deal to say but they knew of course they knew that it was true the world was round and they were not drowned.

  Now Willie liked to sing too. He was a cousin to Rose and so it was in the family to sing, but Willie had no dog with whom to sing so he had to sing with something and he sang with owls, he could only sing in the evening but he did sing in the evening with owls. There were three kinds of owls a Kew owl a chuette owl and a Hoot owl and every evening Willie sang with owls and these are the songs he sang.

  My name is Willie I am not like Rose

  I would be Willie whatever arose,

  I would be Willie if Henry was my name

  I would be Willie always Willie all the same.

  And then he would stop and wait for the owls.

  Through the moon the Q. owl blew

  Who are you who are you.

  Willie was not like his cousin Rose singing did not make him cry it just made him more and more excited.

  So there was a moon and the moon was round.

  Not a sound.

  Just then Willie began to sing.

  Drowning

  Forgetting

  Remembering

  I am thinking

  And the chuette owl interrupted him.

  Is it

  His it

  Any eye of any owl is round.

  Everything excited Willie, he was more excited and he sang

  Once upon a time the world was round the moon was round

  The lake was round

  And I I was almost drowned.

&n
bsp; And the hoot owl hooted

  Hullo Hullo

  Willie is your name

  And Willie is your nature

  You are a little boy

  And that is your stature

  Hullo Hullo.

  SILENCE

  Willie was asleep

  And everything began to creep around

  Willie turned in his sleep and murmured

  Round drowned.

  3

  EYES A SURPRISE

  Rose did not care about the moon, she liked stars.

  Once some one told her that the stars were round and she wished that they had not told her.

  Her dog Love did not care about the moon either and he never noticed the stars. He really did not notice the moon not even when it was all round, he liked the lights of automobiles coming in and out. That excited him and even made him bark, Love was not a barker although little Pépé was. Pépé could always bark, he really did say bow wow really he did, when you listened he really did.

  Well once they were out in the evening in an automobile, not Pépé, Pépé was not Rose’s dog, you remember that, but Rose and Love and the lights of the automobile were alight so who could listen to the bright moon-light, not Rose nor Love nor the rabbit, not they.

  It was a little rabbit and there he was right in front and in the light and it looked as if he meant it but he really could not help it, not he not the little rabbit.

  Bob, Rose’s father was driving and he stopped but that did not help the little rabbit.

  Light is bright and what is bright will confuse a little rabbit who has not the habit.

  So the little rabbit danced from one light to the other light and could never get alright, and then Bob the father said let out Love perhaps he will help the rabbit to run away, so they let out the white dog Love and he saw first the light and then he saw the rabbit and he went up to say how do you do to the rabbit, that is the way Love was, he always went up and said how do you do he said it to a dog or a man or a child or a lamb or a cat or a cook or a cake or anything he just said how do you do and when he said how do you do to the little rabbit the little rabbit forgot all about the light being bright he just left that light and Love the dog Love disappointed because the little rabbit had not said how do you do, back again, he went after him, of course any little rabbit can run quicker than any white dog and even if the white dog is nice and kind and Love is, so that was all of that. It was a lovely night and Love came back into the car and Bob the father drove on home and of course Rose sang as the rabbit ran and her song began.