Who was Rene Cloke?
Rene Cloke was a 20th century illustrator of children's books and greeting cards. She was born in 1904 in Plymouth, England, and her career as an illustrator spanned approximately 70 years, from the 1920s until her death in Wimbledon, England, in 1995. She was self-taught as a watercolourist and was known for her "whimsical" style. For more information, see Rene Cloke (Wikipedia).
Historical context and authorship
Stories of Brer Rabbit became popular in the English-speaking world in the late nineteenth century after they were published by Joel Chandler Harris. Harris was an American journalist and folklorist who collected Brer Rabbit stories from African American oral storytellers in Georgia and North Carolina. His stories are written in an 'eye dialect' intended to represent the language of the storytellers who shared the tales with him. His story framing, through the character of Uncle Remus, and his linguistic representation of plantation dialect with Gullah and Geechee elements is often viewed as problematic today.
Rene Cloke's Brer Rabbit stories were published in the 1980s, a hundred years after Harris's first publication. They are written in 20th century British English and adapted for a British child audience. I wondered if they might be more closely connected to Enid Blyton's versions of the Brer Rabbit tales, as Enid Blyton apparently wrote over 300 Brer Rabbit tales from the 1930s onwards, and is known to have adapted Harris's versions into a middle-class English country setting, as well as creating new stories of her own. Whatever the potential intermediary sources for Cloke's stories, the stories themselves can be traced to Harris's publications, as I'll outline below.
To my knowledge, Cloke illustrated 17 Brer Rabbit stories in total. Four are published in Brer Rabbit Stories (1982), four in More Brer Rabbit Stories (1982), and four in Hello Brer Rabbit (1985), all three books published as part of the Storytime Library series by Award Publications Limited. Cloke's last five Brer Rabbit stories were published in Brer Rabbit Again! (1987) by Award.
The writer of the Brer Rabbit stories illustrated by Rene Cloke is not made clear in the original publications. The books simply note that the collections are illustrated by Rene Cloke, and the author of the stories is not credited.
For this reason, there is some confusion around who wrote the stories – Cloke's Wikipedia page attributes the writer of the stories in Cloke's 1982 publications as Joel Chandler Harris but clearly these stories, told in 20th century British English rather than late nineteenth century dialect, are not told in Harris's words. Additionally, Cloke's Brer Rabbit Again! is listed on the same Wikipedia page as 'retold by Enid Blyton' and I suspect there's been a conflation here with Blyton's identically titled Brer Rabbit Again! (1963), illustrated by Grace Lodge.
Award has republished Cloke's Brer Rabbit stories multiple times since their first publication in the 1980s, and the writer of the stories is often unclear on the covers of the books, but later publications do credit Rene Cloke as both writer and illustrator of the tales.
Award released the (almost) full set of Rene Cloke's illustrated Brer Rabbit stories in a beautiful hardback collection titled Favourite Brer Rabbit Stories in 2018, and this collection states on the title and copyright page (although not on the front and back covers) that Rene Cloke both wrote and illustrated the tales:
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| Detail from back cover. Image source: Crescent Bookshop |
The Gramercy Books publication of Cloke's Brer Rabbit stories in 2006 also makes it clear that Rene Cloke both retold and illustrated the stories:
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| Image source: Amazon |
This edition is advertised online as containing 18 stories, but I can't find a list of the contents to confirm if there was indeed another Cloke story.
Cloke's original publications and contents
Brer Rabbit Stories
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| Photo: My collection Brer Rabbit Stories Illustrated by Rene Cloke ISBN 0 86163 057 2 © Award Publications Limited 1982 Spring House, Spring Place London NW5, England Reprinted 1982-83-84 Printed in Hungary Contains: Brer Fox and Mrs Goose The Moon in the Pond Brer Rabbit and the Honey Pot Brer Wolf Breaks the Law |
See my review of Brer Rabbit Stories
More Brer Rabbit Stories
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| Photo: My collection (appears to be a 1985 reprint) More Brer Rabbit Stories Illustrated by Rene Cloke ISBN 0 86163 083 1 © Award Publications Limited 1982 Spring House, Spring Place Kentish Town London NW5, 3BH, England Reprinted 1982-83-84-85 Printed in Hungary Contains: Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox The Tar-Baby Brer Rabbit and Brer Tortoise Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox Go Fishing |
See my review of More Brer Rabbit Stories
Hello Brer Rabbit
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| Photo: My collection Hello Brer Rabbit Illustrated by Rene Cloke ISBN 0 86163 134 X Copyright ©1985 Award Publications Limited Spring House, Spring Place London NW5 3BH Printed in Belgium Contains: The Great Race Brer Fox Goes Hunting How Brer Rabbit Lost His Tail Brer Rabbit and Brer Bear See my review of Hello Brer Rabbit |
Brer Rabbit Again!
Reprints in other editions and formats
The first eight of Cloke's Brer Rabbit stories and illustrations were republished by Award in 1983 in a collection titled My Big Book of Brer Rabbit Stories:
There is also a 1987 edition of the same name, but with a different cover, and I am unsure of its contents. It may include the 4 stories published in 1985 and thus contain 12 stories.
The original collections appear to have been republished individually by Award in 1993:
The Tina Rose collection
To further complicate matters of authorship, Award, in conjunction with Arlington House, published a Little Treasury of Brer Rabbit Stories in 1988 that are clearly credited as illustrated by Rene Cloke and "Retold by Tina Rose".
This was a miniature boxed set of six board books with Rene Cloke's illustrations but with Tina Rose retelling Rene Cloke's retelling of Joel Chandler Harris's tales. From the little I could see online, the board book stories are clearly simplified versions of Rene Cloke's stories.
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