Lampy Is Careful Not to Trample on Fond Memories in Wonderland Venture--Editors Hold Tone of Genial Fantasy

The following review of the "Wonder Book," Lampy's current special number, was written by F. W. C. Hersey '99, of the University English Department.

When I first saw the cover of the Lampoon's Wonder-Book, I felt sure I should enjoy the number. One could hardly imagine a more charming prelude--a boy and girl wandering across a fairy heath where on near the witch tree and far from the enchanted castle they meet a glant and discover elves; all this in exquisite tinis and April airlness. What a clever hand Philip Boone must have, I said; and I turned to the pictures within to see how the other articles had expressed the spirit of whimsey which must twinkle in story books. I did not find dear Kate Green-away as I had hoped, but I was gladdened by the sight of eighteenth-century villagers dashing round the Mulberry Bush portrayed by the happy fingers of G. Cox; and Red Riding-hood's thatched cottage; with the villainous wolf standing on the door-step, touched with an eerie grace by the pen of Louis Reynal. What could a child's paper be without dolls, and here to be sure is a page of cut-outs of Campus Cut-ups.

The stories, of which there are many in both prose and veree--Hiawatha's Bowling, Joe Slow, the Boy Inventor. The Little Girl and the Kind Ogre, Jack the Giant Spiller, How Brother Rabbit Cleared the Yard, Archibald and the Surly Dragon, The Naughty Boy and the Vengeful Peauut--are all neat little yarns in themselves, and at the same time sly parodies of the plots, characters, and narrative manner of fairy tales.

When I closed the pages in a mood of reminiscence and looked again at the cover rather wistfully, I though. Yes, we can make fun of children's stories, but this doesn't seen; to rub the bloom off. We like them all the more for their artlessness, their quaint little ways. And how harmoniously the editors worked together to create their Wonder-Book and to maintain throughout their tone of genial fantasy.