"Rumpel-Stilts-Kin" by George Cruikshank (1792-1878)

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Rumpel-Stilts-Kin

George Cruikshank, 1792-1878

Etching that "carefully follow[s] the originals drawn by Cruikshank"

17.6 cm high by 12.5 cm wide (6 ⅞ by 4 ⅜ inches)

German Popular Stories (1823), Vol. I, p. 150.

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Scanned image and text by Siobhan Lam.

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Vogler's Commentary: Textual Reference to the Illustrator

Rumpel-Stilts-Kin Rumpel-Stilts-Kin is shown pulling his foot out of the floor the moment after the queen has guessed his name. Taylor's translation indicates that he was not unaware of his illustrator, since on the second day of guessing the queen begins her recitation of comical names with "Bandy-legs," "Hunchback," "Crook-shanks," and so on. The use of such internal verbal references to the artist himself is not uncommon in works that first appeared in print with Cruikshank's illustrations. [No. 55, p. 138]

Related Material

John Camden Hotten (publisher)

Other illustrations from this work

Bibliography

German Popular Stories. Ed. Edgar Taylor with an Introduction by John Ruskin. London: John Camden Hotten, nd.

Taylor, Edgar (translator). German Popular Stories Translated from the Kinder Und Haus Marchen, Collected by M. M. Grimm, from Oral Tradition. Vol. One. London: Charles Baldwyn, 1823.

Vogler, Richard A. Graphic Works of George Cruikshank. New York: Dover, 1979.

Created 12 August 2007

Last modified 30 October 2026