Cole’s Old World

It’s amazing, sometimes, how hard it is to find information online about Australian cultural staples such as snippets from the vast body of work created by Alex Stitt [see boicozine/85]. Cultural relics, often referred to under the subject of ‘Australiana’, such as the Cole’s Funny Picture Book seem to only exist with the sheltered confines of their country of origin.

Cole’s Funny Picture Book is odd, which goes a long way to explain why it’s appeal was confined to it’s home country. It’s also ancient old. It’s origins go back as far as 1879 when one of Australia’s first major booksellers, Edward William Cole [wikipedia] pieced together the first edition from his home above his Cole’s Book Arcade in the centre of Melbourne. It soon became a popular publishing staple in the young city and has been revised and re-released several times over the years (at last count the book was up to it’s 71st edition and rising).

E.W. Cole (as he was credited) [arcadepublications.com] compiled these ‘Funny Picture Books’ in his spare time, often cutting and pasting content purloined from various other books, newspapers and magazines from around the world (copyright was seldom an issue for Cole being so far away from the ‘cultural capitals’ of the world at the time). Chapters were divided into ‘lands’ such as Girl Land, Boy Land, Temper Land, Greediness Land and Laziness Land and would often feature advertising for Cole’s Book Arcade as added promotion for his store. Racial stereotypes abounded under the niave notion that displaying as many over evolved characters as possible, united mankind under one banner although describing characters as ‘niggers’ or naming them things like ‘Little Chinky Chow-Chow’ seems pretty backwards these days.

Still, the Coles Funny Picture Book remains a cultural oddity from a country that likes to keep these sorts of things to itself. As a kid, I always thought the rainbow bursting out of it’s pitch black cover was the best thing about it. Maybe it was…