Rest in peace General Tōjo? Japan then and now.

  

After an agreeable lunch of grilled mackerel, pickles, salad, rice and soup, on our first Saturday in Japan our son John took us to Zōshigaya to see the famous Zōshigaya Kishimojin Temple (founded in 1561; the main buildings date to the mid-17^th century).

Zōshigaya Temple.

However, our first stop was Zōshigaya Cemetery. After a brief search we found what we were looking for – the grave of General Tōjō Hideki, Prime Minister of Japan 1941-1944, who was sentenced to death by the Tokyo war crimes tribunal*. A small sign identifies the tomb as that of “Toujou Hideki a military man, a prime minister” (the difference in spelling of his name reflects a different romanization system). A few flowers decorated the grave, but exactly what remains of Tōjō are buried where is a bit of a mystery. It was the intention of the American authorities to hang Tōjō, cremate him and to scatter his ashes over the Pacific, precisely to prevent there being any permanent burial site that could attract nationalist attention and sentiments. However, it seems that some of his ashes were secretly stolen and buried. Accounts of where the stolen ashes were buried vary. The purported burial sites are the Martyrs' Shrine in Mt. Sangane, Nishio City, Aichi Prefecture, Koa Kannon Temple in Atami in Shizuoka Prefecture, and Zōshigaya. Quite what remains of General Tōjō they may contain is very hard to say.

General Tōjō's grave.

 Other burials tell us of less bellicose aspects of Japan’s history. We noticed a number of memorials marked by Christian crosses. Twenty-four sisters of the Society of the Sacred Heart who died between 1916 and 1953 rest in a single plot. The order arrived in Japan in 1908, sent by Pope Pius X to establish a higher education. Two other Christian burials similarly reflect the large-scale introduction of foreign expertise and a policy of educating the Japanese in modern ideas and technology under Emperor Meiji in the latter part of the 19^th century. Professor Alexander Joseph Hare (1849-1918) served initially in the Department of the Navy helping to give Japan the capabilities that would eventually defeat Russia at sea in 1905, and then in a more pacific role as a teacher of western business practices in the Commercial Training School. Raphael Koeber (1848-1923), born in Russia studied music at the Moscow Conservatory and philosophy and literature at the University of Heidelberg. In Japan he taught music history and gave piano concerts at the Tokyo Music School. The notice that marks his grave tells us that he “introduced a philosophy into Japan and had effected on the Japanese modern music[sic]”.

The burial plot of the Society of the Sacred Heart.

 Jan and I were particularly pleased to find the grave of Natsume Sōseki (1867-1916), an important novelist, and perhaps the most widely read literary figure in Japan. We had visited the museum built on the site of his home several years ago and have read several of his novels. One of the most famous, Sanshirō, follows a student from his home in remote Kyushu to university in Toyko. This is a much-loved novel of social manners at the end of the Meiji era. Kokoro is a much darker story told by two narrators, a student and his sensei (a revered teacher) who has a shameful secret in his past, the betrayal of a close friend.

Natsume Sōseki's grave.

 A map of the cemetery listed seven other notable burials (but not Tōjō). Takeshima Yumeji (1884-1934) was a poet, painter and graphic designer, the leading artist of Taisho-era (1912-1926) romanticism. One of the first Japanese to visit the United States (where he was a whaler and gold miner) was John Manjirō (1827-1898), also known as Nakahama Manjirō. Manjirō’s knowledge of western shipbuilding techniques was instrumental (like Alexander Hare) in the development of the Japanese navy.

John Manjirō.

 Koizumi Yakumo (1850-1904) is better known as Lafcadio Hearn, a Greek-Irish writer, teacher and translator who introduced Japan and its writers to the Western world. During the reign of Emperor Meiji, while the government was busy importing expertise from the world beyond Japan, a few westerners, of whom Hearn was perhaps the most influential, introduced the West to Japanese culture.

Lafcadio Hearn and his wife Setsuko.

 A writer of a very different character from Sōseki was Kafu Naga (1879-1959), known for his depictions of the demimonde of early twentieth-century Toyko was. His writings were suppressed during World War II because of his opposition to the military regime (led of course by Tōjō). Another politically committed figure was Hai Goro (1901-1983), a noted Marxist literary critic, educator and historian, whose work focused on the development of capitalism in pre-Meiji and Meiji-era (1868-1912) Japan.

 Ohkawa Hashizo (1929-1984) was an actor, originally in Kabuki, but best known for his roles in more than 100 films between 1955 and 1981. He also worked in television, notably in 88 episodes of Heiji, The Detective.

 The grave of Ogino Ginko (1815-1913) introduced me to an extraordinary character, and the only woman notable enough to be brought to the attention of visitors to the cemetery. Infected with gonorrhoea by her husband (whom she divorced), her experience of the shame of her disease and of being treated only by male doctors, inspired her to study for nine years to graduate in 1882 from Kojuin Medical School as Japan’s first female doctor. She founded Ogino Hospital in Yushima, converted to Christianity, and in 1890 married Yukiyoshi Shikata, a protestant clergyman. Ogino inspired other women to train for the medical profession.

Ogino Ginko.

 The day before our visit to Zōshigaya we had been to the National Showa Memorial Museum, which provided a good introduction to Japan from the 1930s to the 1950s. The story begins in a Japan that enjoyed few of the benefits of modern industrial society such as a domestic electricity supply or domestic appliances. A domestic convenience available only to the rich and to businesses was the ice refrigerator, a wooden cabinet with two compartments; in the top compartment was a block of ice, and in the lower the foodstuffs were kept cool.

 A black and white photo showed an audience of children enthralled by a kamishibaiya (“paper theatre narrator”) who travelled the streets on a bicycle, on the back of which was mounted a wooden cabinet. The kamishibaiya told stories enlivened by illustrated storyboards and sold inexpensive sweets stored in his cabinet. This was the pre-War equivalent of children’s TV.

The Second Sino Japanese War (1937-1945) and the Great East Asia War (1941-1945, the Pacific theatre of World War II), spurred intensive mobilization not just of the military but of all society. Displays of luxury became unacceptable. Citizens were encouraged to eat simply and sparingly. As scarcity became more severe, a meal might consist of a bowl of rice and a plum. Metal was collected and melted for military uses. A housewife no longer ironed clothes with a metal iron but with a ceramic replacement. Students from primary to university level were educated to be fighters; secondary and university students carried out regular military exercises. Textbooks were revised to promote militarism. As the war came closer to home, children were evacuated in school groups to the countryside and taught in temples and other buildings.

Two exhibits were particularly powerful of examples of commitment to the war effort. When a man was drafted into the armed forces, his wife produced a senninbari (“thousand-person stitches”), a white cotton sash embroidered with 1,000 French knots. The man’s wife stitched the first knot and then invited other women to add theirs to make an image referring to the year of the soldier’s birth (the sash in the museum depicted a tiger). In his turn the soldier-to-be would create a yosegaki hinomaru (“good luck Japanese flag”), inviting friends and relatives to sign it with best wishes.

A senninbari.

A hinomaru.

 The post-war period was one of great deprivation and hunger. Large cities like Tokyo were devastated by fire-bombing (remember that homes in Japan were made of wood). People lived in ruined structures or temporary shelters. War widows suffered particular hardship. During the war, widows were honoured for their sacrifice and received a pension. However, the American occupation abolished all military pensions, on the grounds that enemy soldiers (and, whether intentionally or not, their widows) should not be rewarded. The pensions were restored when the occupation ended.

One exhibit, a DDT pump, illustrated neatly the post-war living conditions. In poor conditions fleas, lice and the like proliferated, and with them disease. The American administration ordered mass fumigation with DDT. The display included a photo of a Japanese child being fumigated, covered head to toe in white DDT powder.

Then came the Japanese economic miracle, neatly summed up in a display of domestic appliances:  liquidisers, washing machines, refrigerators, televisions and so on. The contrast with the pre-war domestic lifestyle was very clear.

The Zōshimaya Temple gingko tree.

 After our visit to the temple and its 700-year-old giant gingko tree, we walked in search of refreshment to Ikebukuro. Our first stop was a bakery with an enormous range of donuts whose customers (John and I excepted) were young women dressed in a variety of fashions, and with impeccable makeup. But, alas, we could not be seated for coffee. Next was the giant (ten floors) Junkudo bookstore – crowded with readers, a delightful sight for an old publisher – but the Book Café was full.

The Ikebukuro donut shop.

 Third time lucky, was a small café where one had to access the menu by QR code. John, aged 35, was decidedly old as the café’s customers go; Jan and I were dinosaurs. The clientele was also decidedly female, and again dressed in an array of fashions, makeup carefully applied. At the table next to us, two customers had purchased boxes of one of the cute toys that are universally popular with young people, attached to handbags or backpacks, or  as collector's items. One girl was unable to contain her excitement when she opened her box – it contained two small plastic figures called chīkawa (based on characters from a manga series) that lit up when the base was pressed. The chīkawa were carefully arranged with the drinks and desserts that the young women had ordered, and then meticulously photographed. I am told that these kinds of cute figures are inexpensive, and that there is an enormous variety of them, including figures produced for sale only in a certain city or region.

C

Chīkawa figures.

For an older generation, a good example of a temple to consumption is the Seibu department store food hall at Ikebukuro where out train line ends. Train companies own department stores, so that stations are also sites for department stores. The Seibu food hall is on two floors. One offers a huge variety of sweets, cakes, teas and coffees. The lower floor is the delicatessen, again with a bewildering variety. The Japan that we visit is, economically and socially, at least, a very long way from the Japan that dusted that little child with DDT.

 

*For an excellent study of the Tokyo war crimes tribunal see: Gary J Bass, Judgment at Tokyo: World War II on Tiral and the Making of Modern Asia, Picador (Knopf in the USA), 2023

The problem with Picasso’s trousers … and Queen Camilla

  

On 20 April five authors gathered at Sunninghill Library (another was ‘present’ in a video) for the Amazing Books for Children Day (ABCD). Using the library as their base, the authors were to cross the street to St. Michael’s School (the village primary school) to inspire the children with a love of books.

 

They did so with the blessing of Queen Camilla, who had written to the children on 13^th March 2026: “I was delighted and impressed to hear about your “Amazing Books for Children Day” on 20^th April. I do hope that you will have a wonderful time, celebrating your love of reading.” They most certainly did have a wonderful time, although the volunteers of the library (and their spouses), who had been preparing for the day for over a year, the library staff, and the teachers of St. Michael’s had a very busy day indeed.

 

 

 

The idea for the day had begun at a dinner hosted in their home by our friends Alison and Neil Baverstock (Alison and I worked together many years ago, and she was until recently Professor of publishing at Kingston University; Neil is a retired brigadier of the army and until recently was the 23^rd Yeoman Usher of the House of Lords). One of the other dinner guests was Nicholas Allan, author and illustrator of children’s books, of which perhaps the most well-known is The Queen’s Knickers (apparently quite a favourite of the late Queen), which has now been supplemented by The King’s Pants.

The authors left to right: Nicholas Allan, Fiona Barker, David Barker, Tilly Rand-Bell, Ally Sherrick.

 

The other four authors who donated their time and expertise on ABCD were:

 

Tilia Rand-Bell (Greeny La-Roo and the Earth Crew) and Fiona Barker (A Swift Return and Do NOT Eat the Egg) who entranced younger readers with their explanation of how words and pictures work together to create amazing characters. 

 

Ally Sherrick (Rebel Heart) introduced pupils to the exciting exploits of Merriweather Price in the England of Oliver Cromwell.

 

And David Barker (Pax and The Missing Head, Pax and the Forgotten Pincher and Pax and the Secret Swarm) introduced students to the adventures of Pax and his school friends in the perilous city of New London.

 

Nicholas’s presentation was literally magical – he is a member of the magic circle. He asked a boy to write his initial on a piece of paper and then punctured the initial on the paper with the pencil only to reveal that there was no hole and the initial was legible. The next trick involved tearing two strips of paper in half repeatedly (good for testing times table: 4, 8, 16, 32, eventually 64 pieces); he then manipulated the pieces to form an intact pair of spotted underpants. Children were invited to smack a dummy blank book: the smacks caused black and white illustrations and text to appear, further smacks turned black and white to colour, and finally all the images and text disappeared when the book was smacked again. Next, Nicholas turned a five-pound note into ten pounds. And finally, he asked children and a teacher to shake a dice in a paper cup, look at the number, and then Nicholas guessed the number the child or teacher had in mind.

 

The book that most interested this former art publisher was Picasso’s Trousers. Nicholas started by asking the children (aged 7-8) who was the best artist of all time: one suggested Vincent Van Gogh (“No” said Nicholas). Another said Leonardo da Vinci: Nicholas responded that he was a very great artist who made important discoveries about perspective, but … the greatest was Pablo Picasso (my readers may or may not agree). The reason? Picasso changed our way of seeing because he realized that when we look at something our two eyes do not see exactly the same thing. Nicholas encouraged the children to experiment by looking at a finger first with one eye, then the other. Try it: your eyes do not see the finger identically.

 

As Nicholas told the story, every time Picasso tried something new he was told “No, no no Picasso.” Whether he was experimenting with colour, with how to portray a face, with fragmenting the image, and so on, he was told “No,” but he did it anyway. Finally, Picasso wanted trousers with horizontal stripes to match his shirt, but the tailor told him “No” because all striped trousers have vertical stripes. But yet again Picasso insisted.

 

Over lunch Nicholas told me, and a fellow ex-publisher and a copyright expert (Richard Balkwill, grandfather of Tilly Rand-Bell) about his negotiations with the Picasso estate. He described discussions with lawyers that lasted several years. Many demands were imposed concerning how Picasso’s works should be illustrated, but the story of his trousers seemed to be the principal sticking point. The lawyers doubted that the story is true, but Nicholas insists that it is. All of this is wearingly familiar to anybody who has had to deal with artists’ estates. The Mondrian estate is notoriously greedy (even though he has been out of copyright for some years now). The Matisse estate insists on approving colour proofs, although it is not clear to what extent the person checking them knows what the original colours were.

 

The children of St. Michael’s had prepared for the day by writing a short story. The authors were asked to judge a short list of five stories from each class and to announce two runners-up and a winner on the day. So the day ended on a note of enthusiasm for writing and reading.

Why burn an OXXO?

  

When I mention to somebody in the UK that we spend a lot of time in Mexico, one of two comments follows. The first is: Cancún? The second is: Isn’t Mexico very dangerous?

 

My answers are that I have only been once to Cancún, in about 1975, before it became the frightful mega-resort that it now is; and that, yes personal safety is an important concern in Mexico, but although members of our family have visited Mexico many times for more than 50 years, none of us has yet been harmed. I sometimes add that an acquaintance once asked me (we were visiting the Paricutín volcano in Michoacán) if I was worried for my safety in London because he had heard that knife crime was very prevalent.

 

I have heard gunshots only once in my now 74 years, one Sunday in calle Mexicali, Colonia Condesa, in Mexico City. A young neighbour in a nearby apartment building had borrowed a gun to warn off a worker in the building who had been pestering the young man’s sister. The confrontation became heated and the young man shot his antagonist several times. I stayed home that day. Once in a while, I would learn of a shooting in Mexico City through conversations or reading the press. Casual violence was not uncommon in 1970s Mexico, but I did not feel threatened. My travels in Guerrero obliged me to be somewhat more cautious, since there was fighting in the mountains between guerrillas and the army.

 

By 2018, when Jan and I spent three months in Zamora, Michoacán, at the Colegio de Michoacán, organized crime had created a much more severe level of violence. Before we left I consulted a man on the Mexico desk of the Foreign Office, who gave me some useful advice. After we had been in Zamora for several weeks, we learned one day that a local crime boss had been arrested, and as retaliation his fighters had stopped some buses, ordered passengers off, and burned the vehicles. Our small local supermarket was attacked with a fire bomb, but it caused little damage. We only learned of this after the event when the owner of our rented apartment told us what had happened. Otherwise, we led normal lives, in the library, attending seminars, walking around town and eating in restaurants and cafés. However, we only left town if we were taken by local colleagues, or if friends told us that the risk of encountering crime was low. Occasionally we were advised not to undertake a visit, to Uruapan, for example. But mostly we lived life as normal and enjoyed being part of a community for a time.

 

In 2026, however, organized crime violence, briefly affected the life of a Jacobs. On 22 February the Mexican armed forces, apparently acting on intelligence from the US government, apprehended Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, alias El Mencho, who died from gunshot wounds. El Mencho was the head man of the Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), currently the most powerful crime syndicate in Mexico; in effect an international enterprise that operates across continents. One of El Mencho’s senior lieutenants is the boss of Puerto Vallarta, where our son Chris lives.

"Mug shots" of El Mencho under arrest in San Francisco 1886 and 1889.

A US Department of Justice wanted poster for El Mencho.

Chris began our regular Sunday Zoom session the next day with the words “We are under attack.” From the balcony of his apartment, with views across the Bahía de Banderas, plumes of smoke could be seen. CJNG men were emptying and burning buses and cars, and businesses. Perhaps the most targeted business was the convenience store chain OXXO, and its lesser rival Kiosko. These shops supply a wide range of generally unhealthy food, with an emphasis on crisps and beers. They also sell some household basics such as milk, eggs, a very limited range of vegetables and fruit, detergents and so on. Most Mexican, and many foreign, residents frequently buy something from an OXXO. The hijackings and burnings lasted for the day, and by Monday it was time to clear up. Chris’s partner Kourtney is a teacher; her school remained closed for several days, but Chris returned to work on Tuesday as normal (he does not work Mondays). He stopped for petrol at a service station where there was a burned out OXXO. The woman who sold him his petrol reported that on Sunday a group of young men had arrived, asked the employees of the OXXO and the petrol station to leave, reassured the petrol station workers that their business would not be harmed, and then poured petrol around the OXXO and lit it.

An Oxxo store in Oaxaca.

 When Chris arrived at work at the botanic garden, he found a group of Canadian tourists being served breakfast. They had been on a bus travelling to the airport on Sunday. The bus was stopped close to the garden, its passengers ordered off, and the bus burned. The garden workers on duty invited the Canadians into their building and gave them shelter and meals for two days. After breakfast on Tuesday, they ordered taxis for their visitors and waved them off.

 

We also heard that the staff of a hotel in the centre of Puerto Vallarta that has no restaurant ventured out in the midst of the violence to find food for their guests. Not all Mexicans are, contrary to the statements of D J Trump, bad people; they can be very generous indeed.

 

I read an article that asked why so many OXXOS were attacked (especially in the state of Jalisco), but also elsewhere. Apparently, the OXXO management refuses to pay protection money and has elaborate security plans. This may have been one reason why so many OXXO stores were attacked, but so were Kioskos and some larger stores such as Costco. I suspect that the sheer ubiquity and visibility of OXXOs was also a reason (there are apparently as many as 22,000 in Mexico, perhaps some 1,500 in Jalisco). Fortunately, it seems that nobody in Puerto Vallarta was killed or injured.

 

The cartel probably has the firepower to inflict far greater violence and terror on the people of Mexico than was the case on 23 February. The objective seems to have been to demonstrate forcefully the power of the cartel and to warn the government not to take further action by targeting things that are highly visible fixtures of everyday life for most Mexicans: convenience stores and public transport.

 

I have often asked Mexican friends in Vallarta how they explain the city’s relative calm, in contrast, for example, to Acapulco, Guerrero, a much older resort which is now a decidedly dangerous place. They usually reply that there is only one cartel in town, so there are no turf wars (as has occurred, for example, in Chilpancingo, the state capital of Guerrero). However, the same friends often comment that a new narco business has opened in a certain neighbourhood, perhaps a bar or a restaurant. When I ask them why they think this might be a narco business, they reply that it is open for very long hours, even when there are no customers. The main function of the business is to launder cash, so profit or loss is not particularly important. I have also read that the boom in condominiums sold to overseas owners is another way for the CJNG cartel to legalize its cash.

I must confess that we have been shaken by the events of 23 February – we will no doubt be more cautious when we next visit Chris and Kourtney, but the CJNG’s revenge will not deter us from our next planned stay.

Alice in Wonderland in Sunninghill

  

2026 is the National Year of Reading in the UK. As our contribution to the year, the volunteers of Sunninghill Library, and Claire Towers-Goodman, the library manager, have organized an exhibition of some of the illustrations from Alice in Wonderland. Today (1 April) Claire and her colleagues organized a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, with a “real live” Alice (actually Chloe, on of the librarians) and craft activities for children. When Jan and I visited the library at 2pm it was full of children busily making White Rabbit pocket watches. Clifford, the Sunninghill Librarian, made two Mad Hatter hats of papier mâché.

 

Here are a few photos, followed by a brief history of Alice in Wonderland.

 

 

 

Note Clifford's hat. 

 

The edition of Alice with dots on the cover is illustrated by the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. 

 

 

The Mad Hatter's Tea.

 

This is the story of Alice (with thanks to Alysoun Saunders, former Macmillan archivist for her precise comments): 

 

Alice in Wonderland: the Tenniel Illustrations

 

Alice in Wonderland is a tale that has been enjoyed for more than 160 years and is one of the most influential children’s books of all time. We all know what the fantastic characters created by Lewis Carroll look like because an artist who specialized in drawing cartoons for Punch magazine drew 42 illustrations for the story. But those first readers did not know that Alice wore a blue dress and blue and white stockings, for the original pictures were black and white.

 

To celebrate the National Year of Reading, we are exhibiting in colour a selection of the illustrations created by Sir John Tenniel (1820-1914) for Alice in Wonderland.

 

The author of Alice was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898) whose pen name was Lewis Carroll. He taught mathematics at Christ Church College, Oxford and was friends with the Dean of Christ Church, Henry Liddell, and his three daughters: Lorina, Alice and Edith.

 

Carroll was a man of many talents. In addition to his two Alice novels, he wrote the nonsense poems, The Hunting of the Snark and The Jabberwock. He also invented the Wonderland Postage Stamp Case, and the nyctograph, a device for writing in the dark, and an early version of a game that became the modern Scrabble. But he is famous as the creator of Alice.

 

One sunny day on 4th July 1862, Carroll took the Liddell sisters on a boat ride on the Thames in Oxford and he told the story that was to become Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The story enchanted Alice Liddell, who becomes Alice in the novel. She begged him to write the story down. The date became known as the “Golden Afternoon” and is celebrated every year in Oxford as “Alice’s Day”.

 

Carroll met Alexander Macmillan, the co-founder of the Macmillan & Co. publishing house in Oxford in 1863. Alexander immediately agreed to publish Alice. Carroll entrusted the illustrations of the story’s extraordinary characters to John Tenniel, whose illustrations for Aesop’s Fables he admired. Tenniel was an unusual artist in that he had been blinded in his right eye by his father in a fencing match. Author and illustrator did not get on: Carroll, who was keen on photography, then a new artform, gave Tenniel photographs of models he liked, but Tenniel refused to use them. Nevertheless, the poses and gestures of Tenniel’s drawings, like Carrol’s story, have enchanted children and adults alike.

 

Carroll paid for Tenniel’s illustrations to be engraved in woodblocks. Electrotypes, made from the woodblocks, were used for printing; as the electrotypes wore out, they were replaced by new ones made from the woodblocks. When Carroll died his estate passed the woodblocks to Macmillan to continue to use to make electros from and for the very odd special "pull". In 1984 Paul Trotman, the company secretary, rediscovered the woodblocks in the company archive. A limited edition of 250 copies with black and white prints was made from them by Rocket Press. The woodblocks are now in the British Library.

 

Indeed, Queen Victoria so enjoyed the book that she commanded that Carroll dedicate his next book to her. It is probable that the Queen did not enjoy that book, An Elementary Treatise on Determinants, quite as much!

 

In 1911 Tenniel commissioned Harry G. Theaker (1873-1954) to colour sixteen of the illustrations. In 1995 Michael Wace, Macmillan’s publisher of children’s books, commissioned DIz Wallis to complete the colouring. We have selected twenty-two illustrations, printed in a large format to show all the details, all but one in colour.

 

Alice got off to a bad start; Carroll rejected the first printing of 2,000 copies (known as the suppressed edition) in June 1865 because Tenniel was dissatisfied with the printing quality. A reprint in December 1865 sold out rapidly and by 1872 Alice was already published in French, German, Swedish, Italian; Finnish followed in 1906 and Esperanto in 1910. An edition in words of one syllable was issued in 1905. A stage adaptation premiered in 1915. By the 21^st century Alice had been read in 175 languages, perhaps most popularly in Japan where 1,271 editions have appeared.

 

Carroll’s brilliant idea of a child’s adventures in a parallel fantastic world is the theme of many subsequent beloved children’s stories, many brought to life by the combined talents of the author and the illustrator such as:

 

J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan, a play 1904; a novel 1911 (illustrations by F. D. Bedford, 1864-1954 and Mabel Lucie Atwell, 1879-1964)

L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, 1900 (illustrations by W. W. Denslow, 1856-1915)

C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, 1950 (illustrations by Pauline Baynes, 1922-2008)

Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time, 1962 (illustrations by Ellen Raskin, 1928-1984)

Phillip Pullman, Northern Lights, 1995; The Subtle Knife, 1997; The Amber Spyglass, 2000

Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth, 1961 (illustrations by Jules Feiffer, 1929-2025)

Neil Gaiman, Coraline, 2002 (illustrations by David McKean)

L. D. Lapinski, The Strange Worlds Travel Agency, 2000 (cover illustrations by Natalie Smillie)

Christopher Edge, The Many Worlds of Albie Bright, 2016 (illustrations by Matt Saunders and Spike Gerrell)

Anna James, Pages & Co: Tilly and the Book Wanderers, 2018 (illustrations by Paola Escobar)

Jenny McLachlan, The Land of Roar, 2019; Dragon Riders of Roar, 2025 (illustrations by Alla Khatkevich)

 

A Man of Distinction Maligned

  

On the day of the death of Robert Mueller, former Director of the FBI, Donald Trump messaged: "Robert Mueller just died. Good, I'm glad he's dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people!" I knew a little about Robert Mueller, but I knew enough to assume that what Mr. Trump has said was not reprehensible just for its bad taste and indifference to the grief of Mr. Mueller’s family, but that he probably traduced Muller’s reputation.

 

This morning The Guardian published an obituary which confirmed my assumptions about both men. Robert Swan Mueller was born in New York City in 1944. He studied at Princeton, New York University and the University of Virginia. He joined the Marines and was awarded a Bronze Star for valour and a Purple Heart. He held positions in attorney offices in California and Washingon DC, and was involved in a number of important cases.

 

Mueller was appointed Director of the FBI by George W Bush, and had his appointment extended from ten to twelve years by Barack Obama. He was the longest serving director, with the exception of J Edgar Hoover. Seven days after he was appointed, al-Qaida attacked the USA on 9/11. Mueller had the moral integrity to instruct FBI agents not to participate in the “enhanced interrogation” techniques instituted by Bush and Dick Cheney: Mueller had the moral courage to refuse to participate in torture. He also successfully opposed an expansion of domestic surveillance of US citizens after 9/11.

 

In 2017 the Deputy Attorney General appointed Mueller to lead the investigation into possible Russian interference in the 2016 election won by Trump to become president. His report found that Russia had intervened in the election in a “sweeping and systemic fashion.” He also concluded that “While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” Contrary to this conclusion, Trump claimed precisely the opposite.

 

In this story of two men of similar ages (Trump was born in 1946), it is not hard to discern which was the man of courage, integrity and patriotic commitment to justice. Alas, that man is not the President of the United States.

30 Years Ago

 

 

On 23 October 1996 Jan and her parents joined me at the Banqueting House in Whitehall. Beneath the ceiling painted by Rubens stood a platform of enormous volumes of The Dictionary of Art (TDA). This was a big day for me and my colleagues, especially Jane Turner, the Editor who around 1985 had joined the small embryonic staff of TDA as a specialist editor for Netherlandish art, and had masterminded the project with great skill and determination since her appointment as the Editor of TDA in 1987.

 

My own involvement in the project had begun at a dinner in New York in November 1980. Now and then I had been asked for advice, notably market research (carried out in the USA by my friend and former reference publisher of St. Martin’s Press, Roland Turner). In 1985, Nicky Byam Shaw, the Chairman of Macmillan, had asked me if I would be the Publisher of TDA, responsible for all aspects of the project, including spending a great deal of money. He told me that the job might not fully occupy my time but that TDA was such an important project that, if I was not busy, I could play golf. As it turned out I never had the time for golf.

 

Some of those giant volumes travelled to launch events in Amsterdam, Paris and Berlin, but not to the US launch in the American galleries of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, nor to the International House in Roppongi, Tokyo (followed by a late-night party in a jazz club), or to the British Ambassador’s residence in Seoul.

 

Thirty years later, Jane and I have written an article for Oxford University Press, current owners of TDA, which with permission I have copied below. But first some photos.

 

Checking page proofs at R. R. Donnelly & Son, Willard, Ohio, Spring 1996: left to right a more youthful Ian Jacobs, Jane Turner, John Peacock, Production Director, Steve Benaim, Production Manager.

 

Julian Bell, The Dictionary of Art, oil on paper, 67x39 inches, 1992. Based on photos of colleagues at work, Julian's painting depicts the offices of TDA at 112 Strand, London. In the full size work (not visible alas in this scan) I can be seen "With his hands in his pockets as usual," as my boss said.

 

 

The Banqueting House, Whitehall, London, 23 October 1996

International House, Tokyo, November 1996. Left to right, front row, Professor Terukazu Akiyama, Japanese adviser to TDA, Naoko Matsumoto, marketing manager, Dr. Larissa Haskell and Professor Francis Haskell, Oxford University, Ian Jacobs, and Joan Mondale, wife of Ambassador Walter Mondale. Mrs. Mondale had a special interest in Japanese art.  

Dr. Youngsook Pak (second left) of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Londonn, British ambassador Thomas Harris, and mIan Jacobsat the launch of TDA, the ambassador's residence in Seoul, 19 November 1996.

The following is the article that Jane and I authored jointly.

 

 

Contributors: Ian Jacobs and Jane Turner

 

Grove Dictionary of Art, The

 

1.   Initial planning.

 

When Harold Macmillan’s family publishing company launched The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians in New York in 1980, he asked the firm’s then chairman, Nicholas Byam Shaw, grandson of the painter John Byam Shaw, to consider a dictionary of art. Richard Garnett, editorial director of The New Grove, also heir to an artistic pedigree (his father was a member of the Bloomsbury Group), was asked to produce an outline plan.

 

Garnett studied the three existing substantial art reference works, the Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler (see Thieme–Becker), the Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs (commonly known as Bénézit), and the Encyclopedia of World Art. The first two consisted only of artist biographies, and the third, liberally illustrated survey articles. Garnett’s plan for The Dictionary of Art envisaged a work of worldwide coverage roughly half as large again as The New Grove that would combine biographies with articles on topics such as forms, styles, and movements, as well as civilizations and cultures omitted from, or insufficiently treated in, standard reference works. Like The New Grove, this dictionary would feature scholarship of the highest caliber while being readable and allowing for opinions and interpretations, not only dry facts.

 

This plan gradually changed. Architecture and the decorative arts, initially allocated only cursory treatment, were ultimately well represented, covered in entries on every UN-recognized country as well as under specific cities and centers of production. The recognition of cultures outside the West was unprecedented, from Africa to Aboriginal Australia and from the Pacific Arts to the Caribbean. This endeavor would take many years, a large investment (eventually £34 million), and would require a team of specialists in many areas.

 

On its publication in 1996, the dictionary consisted of 34 volumes (the 34th being an index), with 45,000 entries in alphabetical order, comprising some 26 million words of text written by 6802 scholars from more than 120 countries, accompanied by 15,000 black-and-white illustrations and 300 color plates. Nearly a quarter of the articles were translated from thirty different languages. The tasks of commissioning and processing such vast content were therefore substantial and complex, especially considering that most of the editorial and production work was carried out before the internet and email became generally available. Communication was conducted by fax, letter, and telephone or by hand when authors visited Britain.

Fig. oao-9781884446054-e-8000025119-graphic-1.jpg The stage for the launch of The Grove Dictionary of Art in the Banqueting House in Whitehall, October 23, 1996; image credit: Macmillan Publishers International Ltd.

 

2.   Editorial appointments and detailed planning.

 

By 1983 Macmillan Publishers had approved the plan, and Garnett had appointed as editor Hugh Brigstocke, who was succeeded in 1987 by Jane Turner; in 1985 Ian Jacobs was appointed as publisher of the project. Brigstocke assembled an international advisory board of twelve senior scholars, along with a growing number of outside area advisers whose role was to suggest topics for inclusion, their relative word lengths, and potential authors. By this time an initial team of scholars was appointed as in-house area editors, responsible for all aspects of the planning of their area of expertise, such as Classical Greece and Rome, medieval European architecture, Italian Renaissance art, Africa, the Pre-Columbian Americas, or Islamic art. Given the subject range, writers were commissioned from many disciplines: art historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, curators, specialists who worked for art dealers and auction houses, and independent scholars. Eventually, the in-house editorial team consisted of some 100 editors who prepared articles for publication, relying on a 450-page editorial manual known as the “bible” to ensure consistency.

 

For general articles on materials and techniques, art forms, building types, patronage, collecting, and dealing, editors worked together to coordinate coverage globally and across time. For example, the article “Door” included discussions of this form from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, Early Christian and medieval Europe, Renaissance, Mannerist, Baroque, Rococo, and the Western world after 1750, as well as in the Islamic world, the Indian subcontinent, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Pre-Columbian Americas. Lorenzo Ghiberti’s famous Baptistery doors in Florence were discussed here, their planning in detail in the biography of Ghiberti, their creation in the broader context of the history of the building and of its patronage, and the remarkable feat of their casting was addressed from a technical perspective in an article on “Bronze.” Such interrelated coverage was facilitated by the index and extensive cross-references.

In a period of rapid changes in their disciplines, editors embraced evolving scholarly approaches. For example, some scholars of South Asian art adopted traditional dynastic labels, while others divided art into religious categories: Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, and so on. The editor for South Asian art worked with advisers to devise a system of geographical and temporal categories that could be applied flexibly. Similarly, Islamic art was defined not as the art of a religion but art produced in places where Islam was the principal or most important religion, and again was structured by geographical and chronological categories. The territorial size of Islamic art involved terminology in Arabic, Persian, Ottoman Turkish (distinct from modern Turkish), Russian, Spanish, French, and “Orientalist” transcription systems. A simplified system based on Arabic script was adopted. Similarly, editors did not shrink from controversies. As critic Robert Hughes noted in his 1996 review in Time magazine: “It will not … make Greek nationalists happy to find … the view that the ancient Helladic culture was not created by Greek indigenous peoples but by a people who emigrated from what is now Turkey.”

 

Editors had to keep abreast of news and geopolitical events. Work on the dictionary began when the Soviet Union and European Communist states were essentially closed to the West. Communication with scholars in those areas was controlled by the state, which posed challenges. The publisher, for instance, resisted Russian requests to “correct” articles on Russian art written by non-Soviet scholars. Access to scholars became easier in 1985 (thanks to Glasnost) and even more relaxed as Communist regimes collapsed in 1989. This led to additional work and the incorporation of new topics and discoveries, especially from Central Asia where Soviet scholars had made significant finds. Entries distorted by loyalty to the former regimes were replaced, and many references to East Germany, East Berlin, and Yugoslavia were amended. Scholars facing social and political unrest in Sri Lanka and Afghanistan resorted to faxes and diplomatic pouches to send information documenting endangered or destroyed national monuments.

 

Picture research and indexing proceeded alongside editing. When commissioned, contributors were asked to suggest illustrations. Editors checked their proposals to avoid duplication, and a team of picture researchers acquired the images. Besides commercial images, maps, archaeological site plans, and specially drawn diagrams were commissioned. The Index ultimately consisted of some 750,000 references.

 

3.   Other functions and technology.

 

By the 1990s some 120 people worked in the offices of the dictionary at 112 Strand in central London. Supplementing the editorial team were indexers, picture editors, translators, administrators, and production staff.

 

Bespoke computer systems were commissioned for indexing and administration (the latter from the London Business School). Such was the scale and complexity of the typesetting, indexing, and digital coding that only five suppliers worldwide were capable of supporting the production of the dictionary; Pindar Ltd. in Scarborough, Yorkshire, was selected. Although initial publication as a multi-volume book set was planned, by c. 1986 it was decided to use a form of SGML (standard generalized markup language) to simplify the management of typography and other elements and to facilitate future digital publication. The makeup and correction of many thousands of pages in a few months was managed by William Clowes Ltd. of Beccles, Suffolk; the volumes were printed in Willard, OH, by R.R. Donnelley & Sons.

 

4.   Reception and reviews.

 

In1996 The Grove Dictionary of Art was named Apollo Book of the Year and also received the 1996 George Wittenborn Memorial Book Award (“demonstrating excellence in art publishing”) from ARLIS, NA. In 1997 the American Library Association awarded the dictionary the Dartmouth Medal, which recognizes a reference work of outstanding quality and significance. The same year the H. W. Wilson Award of the American Society for Indexing was given to the dictionary’s indexers, Ruth Levitt and Gillian Northcott, who the previous year had been awarded the 1996 Wheatley Medal of the Society of Indexers in the UK. In 1998 Jane Turner received a special Charles Rufus Morey Award from the American College Art Association.

 

Reviews were unanimously positive, recognizing the unrivaled range and the colossal amount of labor and organization that went into the ambitious enterprise. Richard Brilliant of Columbia University, for example, highlighted the inclusion of “African art, world architecture, Asian art, the decorative arts, Islamic art, Buddhist art, 20th-century art, photography, and many other … topics only recently recognized as worthy of attention.” Admittedly, however, not all general topics, such as “Portraiture,” were covered as globally as editors would have liked.

The Burlington Magazine observed that the dictionary had taken patronage seriously but lacked an overarching entry on the practice of patronage. A review in Art Documentation welcomed the heightened prominence of the decorative arts, especially those beyond the Western traditions, but felt that biographies of makers were too few compared to painters, sculptors, and architects. The coverage of American art was, the review judged, far superior to that in existing surveys and reference works, and the inclusion of art from many traditions enabled readers to explore comparative art history globally.

 

Thearticles were commended for incorporating up-to-date research, including new archaeological discoveries. Concerning architecture, its inclusion within broader art history

was especially valuable. Also praised was the jargon-free, “clear and readable” prose of the entries, which as Robert Hughes remarked, were “sometimes even dryly witty.” The sense of humor was perhaps best exemplified by the spine of vol. 19, covering “Leather to Macho.”

 

5. Grove Art Online.

 

The absence of a CD-ROM edition, regretted by some reviewers upon publication, was addressed in 1998 when the publisher opted to convert the dictionary into an online resource under the supervision of deputy editor Diane Fortenberry. Taking advantage of the SGML mark-up introduced during typesetting, Semantico, based in Brighton, Sussex, and founded by the programmer who maintained the dictionary’s index system, originally created by Roger Charlesworth, converted the typesetting files to an online, searchable database. The index was repurposed as a “related article” function to direct users quickly to relevant material elsewhere in the database.                                                                   

 

Thelack of online permissions for all illustrations except for maps and line drawings was solved in two ways. Links to images available on museum websites were embedded in articles, but this was limited by availability. A more comprehensive solution was provided by an arrangement with the Bridgeman Art Library to search its image database. The online publication has since enabled editors to update content rather than adding new material by way of spinoff books or new editions every ten or twenty years. In 2003 The Dictionary of Art and Grove Art Online were acquired by Oxford University Press, which five years later relaunched the online portal as Oxford Art Online.

 

Bibliography.

 

Gardner, Wendy. “The Dictionary of Art: The Concept, the Challenges, and the Achievements.” Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America 15, no. 2 (Fall 1996): 29–32.

Stahl, Joan. “The Grove Dictionary of Art Online.” Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America 18, no. 2 (Fall 1996): 51–52.

“The Alphabetical Ordering of World Art.” The Burlington Magazine 138, no. 1123 (Oct 1996): 643.

Hughes, Robert. “Towering Venture: Grove’s New 34-volume Dictionary of Art is an Epic Publishing Event.” Time 148, no. 21 (Nov 4, 1996): 93–94.

Brilliant, Richard. “A Vast Compendium of Knowledge.” Art Journal 56, no. 2 (Summer 1997): 82–85.

Cole, Herbert M. “Africa in The Dictionary of Art.” African Arts 30, no. 1 (Winter 1997): 58–65, 85–88.

Doumato, Lamia and others. “Dictionary of Art 34 vol. by Jane Turner.” Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America 16, no. 1 (Spring 1997): 23-27.

“Like a cigarette butt”

  

On 23 February 1981 Carmen Diez de Pereira spent much time making phone calls. The first was to the Captain General of Valencia, asking for a car to take her to speak to her husband. She explained that she had been trying to arrange for her husband to call her without success. Spain’s Director General of Security had suggested recording her voice so that it could be broadcast to her husband by megaphone. But, she explained, “I know Antonio and Antonio thinks that they have forced me [to speak].”

 

She also spoke to her friend Herminia, who told her that she should be proud, but Carmen’s judgement of her husband was harsh: “he’s a wretched failure [desgraciao]” who had been deceived. Carmen said much the same thing to another friend, and added that Antonio had “so much love of the patria, he gave it so much, see how they have taken him in.” Carmen phoned her son Antonio, a student in the Military Academy of Zaragoza: “Bien hijo mío, ya te puedes imaginar han dejao a tu padre tirao como una colilla” [Well son, what do you think, they have thrown your father away like a cigarette butt.] “What happened?”, Antonio Jr asked. “Pues que el ejército se ha rajao.” {Well, the army has lost its nerve].

 

The unhappy man who was Carmen’s husband and father of their six children, died on 25 February 2026 (Carmen had died in 2022). His death was front page news in El País, for Antonio was Antonio Tejero, the Civil Guard colonel who 45 years ago had led his troops into the Spanish Cortes and had held the entire Spanish government captive. By coincidence, Antonio died on the very day that the documentation relating to his attempted coup was declassified, including recordings of Carmen’s anguished phone calls.

Tejero in the Cortes 23 February 1981

 

The extensive reports in El País make it clear that these were perilous times for the young Spanish democracy, presided over by King Juan Carlos I. A government report written after Tejero’s failed coup identified three significant plots: Tejero’s conspiracy, which involved a number of low-level officers as protagonists, another military-only group of more senior officers, and a military-civilian scheme. None of this could have surprised the authorities. Tejero had been disciplined several times for actions and published views that contravened military discipline. Six lower-level officers of the Centro Superior de Información para la Defensa (CID, the Spanish secret service) were involved in Tejero’s affair. And the Ministry of Defense was aware that the military had begun to regard the King as an enemy.

 

The King himself had proposed a plan to avoid a military coup, involving a coalition government led by a soldier. Juan Carlos had allowed General Alfonso Armada to promote himself as a possible leader of such a government. Armada was a key element of Tejero’s plan. The idea was to seize the government, then Lieutenant General Jaime Milans del Bosch would mobilize his troops in Valencia, Armada would visit the King to persuade him to back the coup. The first two parts succeeded: Tejero had captured the entire government, Milans del Bosch had sent tanks on to the streets of Valencia, and troops had seized the studios of Televisión España (TVE).

 

But the problem was the King. When Armada requested an audience Juan Carlos said no. He told Milans del Bosch “I will not abdicate, nor will I leave Spain. Anybody who rebels is prepared to provoke a new civil war and will be responsible for it.” He sent a telex to the Captains General of the army stating that “I have ordered the civil authorities and the Chiefs of Staff to maintain the constitutional order.” The troops occupying TVE were persuaded to withdraw and the King recorded an address to the nation.

 

Tejero stood down, but the threat was by no means eliminated. Another coup was planned for 24 June, the King’s birthday, when the most senior military officers, diputados [members of congress] and senior government officials would all be gathered in the Royal Palace. This too failed (the presence of diplomatic corps stayed the conspirators’ hand). One military officer complained that the error of the conspirators “was to leave the Bourbon [the King] at liberty and to deal with him as if he were a gentleman.” Juan Carlos, the officer lamented, was ready “to proceed with his suicidal plan to include the socialists in the government.” Therefore, the military should eliminate the King.

 

Tejero was prosecuted and sentenced to 30 years in prison. After his release, he lived in retirement devoting himself to painting and occasionally attending events such as the reinterment of Franco’s remains. He does not seem to have changed his views and at his funeral there a few cries of “Viva Tejero.”

 

Juan Carlos, in contrast, has been living in disgrace in Abu Dhabi after abdicating because of his involvement in a corruption scandal. We were in Spain in 2022 when he paid a brief private visit to Spain. The press coverage of his visit was unanimously hostile. The extensive coverage of the death of Tejero in February 2026 was accompanied by reports that Juan Carlos may return to live in Spain. The government and the royal household have indicated that his return would not be opposed. Perhaps the anniversary of the moment when he played a vital role in securing Spain’s democratic future will compensate for his disgrace.