Wee Willie Winkie [antikvár]

Introduction In the autobiographical story 'Baa Baa, Black Sheep', Kipling describes a small boy's excitement at reading his first story, a tale from an old children's magazine about a sheep being carried away by a griffin: '"This," said Punch, "means things, and now I will know all about everything in all the world." He read till the light failed, not understanding a tithe of the meaning, but tantalized by glimpses of new worlds hereafter to be revealed.' For Punch the thrill of fiction is allied to the fantasy of knowledge, of finding out about the 'new worlds' that make up 'the world'. Reading offers him the opportunity to know things, but makes him realize he has to know things in order to read. Understandably, he seeks to enlist help. 'What is a "falchion".? What is a "e-wee lamb"? What is a "base ttssurper"? What is a "verdant me-ad"?' he demanded with flushed cheeks, at bedtime, of the astonished Aunty Rosa. 'Say your prayers and go to sleep,' she replied, and that was all the help Punch then or afterwards found at her hands in the new and delightful exercise of reading. Like all Kipling's best stories. Punch's history is hoth an-ecdotally specific and queerly archetypal. It is at the same time an episode from Kipling's autobiography and a fable of reading. It's a fable with a particularly ironic resonance for someone editing and introducing Kipling. Unlike Aunty Rosa, an editor has to answer the kinds of questions asked by Punch, like 'what is a "falchion"?' or 'base wiiurper', and to answer them without usurping upon the reader's own reading. In the end Punch enjoys his 'new and delightful exercise' without editorial assistance, as Kipling's readers can, but it is just because for Kipling storytelling and knowledge were so intimately