The Princess and the Pea (A Good Night, Sleep Tight Storybook, Grandreams, 1992, ret. Grace De La Touche, illus. Pam Storey)

The Princess and the Pea
Illustrated by Pam Storey
Story re-told by Grace De La Touche
© 1993 Grandreams Limited
Published by Grandreams Limited
Jadwin House, 205/211 Kentish Town Road, London NW5 2JU
Printed in Italy
ISBN 1-85830-113-0

This retelling of 'The Princess and the Pea' by Grace De La Touche, illustrated by Pam Storey, was copyrighted to Grandreams in 1993. It was published as part of Grandreams' Goodnight, Sleeptight Storybook series, as part of a quartet alongside retellings of 'The Tinderbox', 'The Wild Swans', and 'The Emperor's New Clothes', likely in a boxed set, as all share the same ISBN.

For an overview of the Goodnight, Sleeptight Storybook collection, with links to my reviews of the other books in the series, see Goodnight, Sleeptight Storybook Series (Grandreams, 1990s).

Book details

The front cover shows a maid carrying a pea on a velvet cushion, with a woman in 18th century period clothing looking on with hands clasped to her face. (Note: This image doesn't align with any of the interior illustrations. There is a maid that passes a pea to the queen, but she looks nothing like this maid; the queen is illustrated in one scene with hands clasped to her face and wears a very similar skirt, but the bodice, sleeves, and hat are new).

The inside of the front cover features an image of the castle on a hill, with a clear path leading up to it, and a princess in rags at the bottom about to make her way uphill, in heavy rain. The image is framed by leaves. 

The title page features a velvet cushion holding the pea inside another leafy frame, with publication details below. 

The story takes place over 20 pages, beginning on the back of the title page and ending on the inside of the back cover.

The story - retold by Grace De La Touche

As with the other stories in this set, the story begins "Long ago and far away..." In this story, we are introduced to a prince, who lives with his parents but is unhappy because he cannot find a bride. He travels to search for a suitable bride but cannot find a true princess. The king agrees "[t]hey are rare" and his mother encourages him to "wait and see... Everything will turn out all right". 

There are some lovely details of the night of the storm: 

It was not a night to be outside! The King, Queen and Prince were sitting by a roaring fire, warming their toes, when suddenly there was a loud knocking at the castle gate.

The "very wet and bedraggled looking girl" who arrives claims to be a princess who is lost, and the queen conceives her idea to test whether she is a true princess by hiding a dried pea at the bottom of twenty mattresses and twenty quilts.

When the girl wakes "black and blue with bruises" from "something hard in that lovely soft bed" the queen declares her a true princess, and the prince is delighted, because he had already fallen in love with the girl – princess or not! A royal wedding follows, and the pea is put in a museum. 

This is a faithful retelling of the Hans Christian Andersen original, just with some additional cosy details.

The illustrations - Pam Storey

I really enjoyed Pam Storey's illustrations, which worked really well with De La Touche's text to present a caring royal family (there is always the possibility in this tale for them to seem snobbish, heartless, and out of touch). 

The prince initially appears in a very Puritan-looking outfit, complete with capotain hat with buckle, but this segues into an image of him wearing a white wig (with a bow tying back his long hair), a two-layered jabot, and red frock coat. 

His mother, the queen, wears her hair in a high roll (picture Marie Antoinette) with feathers and bows, and the king wears red robes with ermine trim (familiar coronation robes). Both parents have heart-shaped mouches (artificial beauty patches) on their faces, placing the setting fairly firmly in the 18th century.

The royal family look shocked as the princess arrives soaked and ragged in their hall and all are smiling as they sit at the dinner table together soon after. 

The king is depicted as separately concerned, dismayed, courteous, and jovial. He has a sizable girth and the longest nose of the many long-nosed, homely characters. 

The princess is depicted in innocent white throughout most of the story – first in the evening gown she is given to wear to dinner, later in her nightgown, and lastly in a day gown, possibly her wedding gown. In this final image her unbound blonde hair, emphasising her innocence throughout, is replaced by a white high roll.

I particularly liked the focus on the queen in these images, as she hurriedly asks a bemused cook for a single pea, then supervises the piling of the mattresses and oversees the assessment and declaration that the princess is a true princess. She seems genuine and kind in her intentions (which is not always the way one thinks of the queen in this story!), and delighted with the result. The illustration of all the maids carrying mattresses and of the maid peeking around the bed curtain as they put the princess to bed was also a lovely fun touch.