Violet Books
Illustrations from The Flame Fiend
"Suddenly there was a crash!"
This & the following three plates are examples from one of the oddest children's novels ever written. Hallie L. Jameson's The Flame Fiend (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1921) is subtitled "A text-book on fire prevention" since every chapter has the didactic purpose of teaching children fire safety. Yet from the opening scene when one of the boys conjure a djinn, to the ending wherein the flame fiend has transformed American children into platoons of firefighters, it really is as much fantasy novel as it is "text book."
"The fury of the fire swept straight up through the heart of the city"
Though the book calls him a genie, a flame fiend, & the King of Fire, it seems pretty obvious that the fiend befriended by the boys of the tale is a classic red devil of Christian imagination, vis, Lucifer, the Evil One, or Satan. In this lovely portrait he destroys an entire city merely to delight the lads. And the author's text in no way conveys any sense of irony that the boys are chums of Satan.
"I promised to teach you young mortals something."
Now to an old heretic like me this is great -- the devil as ideal instructor for children -- but I do wonder how in Hell the publishers got away with it!
"'They have promised!' he cried -- and sank back on the pillows."
Carrying the demonic imagery of the Fire Fiend through to the end, he even appears, in the manner of an incubus, in one of the lads' bed. A demented book indeed! These four illustrations are representative of several, the Fiend invariably present. The artist, alas, is nowhere credited in the book.
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