Mr. and mrs Brown's adventure with a mouse 1.

Mr. and Mrs. Brown's
adventure
with a Mouse

Some nice magic lantern slide sets from the story 'Die Maus oder Die gestörte Nachtruhe', written and illustrated by Wilhelm Busch.

	The original source of this remarkable story is the tale 'Die Maus oder Die gestörte Nachtruhe', from: 'Drei Bilderbogen und ihre Entwürfe', written and illustrated by the German author Wilhelm Busch (1860). In the Netherlands the story was published as 'De muis of De Gestoorde Nachtrust' (The Mouse or The disturbed Night's rest) in several different versions; most of them in verse, once in a while in prose. The text in verse is from the Dutch writer Braga Jr. Sometimes the illustrations of Busch were used; the versions at the left have 12 full-page black silhouette drawings made by P. van Geldrop. The books were published since 1864 It is likely that there are a lot of book editions in other languages too. I do not know them.

Probably the best-known set of magic lantern slides about the story of Mr. and Mrs. Brown and the Mouse forms part of the famous Primus Junior Lecturers Series, as nr 510. A set of eight slides shows their nightly troubles with the mouse. The slides have 'built-in' text strips which makes the addition of a printed text superfluous.

The images below show a striking similarity between the Primus set and another one of an unknown manufacturer (Who copied who?). The sets of Primus always contained eight slides or for longer stories multiplies of eight. The set below contains twelve slides; the numbers 2, 4, 6, en 9 are added here (or left out by Primus). A remarkable mistake attracts attention: in both sets the bedstead initially stands at the right side of the bedroom. The following slides show the bed standing at the other side of the window. In the second set this mistake can be corrected by showing the slide as a mirror image. The Primus set makes this impossible due to the text strip in the picture.

The following set of twelve magic lantern slides was created by Walter Tyler, England. In this series Mr. and Mrs. Brown get a first name, namely Tom and Maria. The dimensions are 8.2 x 8.2 cm. On the right and below the original corresponding readings.




Above only four of the twelve slides of the set are reproduced because the images are just similar to the images of the black and white slides below. So the same series is published in both a black and white, as a coloured version. These slides are again clearly inspired by the drawings of Wilhelm Busch. Manufacturer Wrench & Son, England.




Manufacturer of this set: York & Son, England.
		1. Their midnight slumbers are disturbed by a mouse	2. Brown commences the attack

		3. Why don't you stop him	4. The chase becomes more exciting

5. The mouse retreats into Brown's night-cap	6. Ha! ha! we have him safe at last	7. They bear him in triumph to a tub	8. But unfortunately forgot there was a hole in it

9. Softly, we shall have him yet	10. But, when caught, is not so easily shaken off	11. Final leap and downfall of Mr and Mrs Brown	12. Mr and Mrs Brown, I wish you good morning


The images of these oblong glass lantern slides are also obvious painted from the original illustrations by Wilhelm Bush. Unfortunately slide number 3 that bears the images 7, 8, and 9 is missing.
On the next page you'll find the original English reading that could be declaimed by a lanternist during his performance.