Markino, Yoshio (designer). There Was a Little Man and He Had a Little Gun. Funny Face Series No. 1. London: Dean & Son,American Export Variant, c.1903. With Original Composition Head.

Markino, Yoshio (designer). There Was a Little Man and He Had a Little Gun. Funny Face Series No. 1. London: Dean & Son, Boston & New York: L. C. Page & Co., 1903 n.d.

Small quarto (approx. 24 cm). Chromolithographed pictorial boards with central die-cut oval aperture revealing the original molded gypsum three-dimensional composition face, mounted permanently as issued. Japanese calligraphy by Markino on the upper cover. Illustrated throughout with color lithographs designed by Yoshio Markino, who reimagines traditional English nursery rhymes within Japanese costume and settings. Unpaginated. Unrecorded American market variant.

Publisher and Series: Issued in London by Dean & Son and concurrently in the United States by L. C. Page & Co., this volume is the first title in the publisher’s short-lived “Funny Face Series,” followed in 1903 by Old Mother Hubbard. The series represents a late, little-documented revival of Dean & Son’s earlier Victorian novelty book traditions.

Format and Mechanism: The book employs the same principle as Dean’s mid-nineteenth-century “mechanical head” or “flexible-faced” books: a die-cut aperture in each page reveals a sculpted three-dimensional face mounted permanently behind the text block, so that the same expressive head appears in every illustrated scene. The format is a direct descendant of the firm’s celebrated flexible-face storybooks of the 1860s, here adapted with new artwork for Edwardian audiences. In this Markino-designed issue, the molded insert is best described as a composition or gypsum-based head—rather than the gutta-percha used in Dean’s earliest examples—reflecting the company’s later production materials and techniques.

Designer/Illustrator: The striking cover and interior illustrations were created by the Japanese-British artist Yoshio Markino (1869–1956), then living and working in London. Markino’s early commercial work for children’s publishers is scarce, and this volume—merging Victorian mechanical book technology with his Japonisme-inflected reinterpretations of English nursery rhymes—constitutes an unusual and culturally significant collaboration.

Dating this book:

British Edition (1903).

The earliest documented appearance of this title is in Navy & Army Illustrated, Vol. 17 (1903), p. 290, which introduces Dean & Son’s new novelty series:

“In the production of attractive children’s books Messrs. Dean and Son have always been well to the fore, and this season appear to have beaten their own record by the novelty and variety of their publications. Quite a new departure from the ordinary toy book is the Funny Face Series (1s. each). In each book a composition head is introduced, and arranged in such a way that it forms the face of the figure for every page, thus producing a variety of most amusing effects. In No. 1 of this series, There Was a Little Man and He Had a Little Gun, the designs by the Japanese artist Yoshio Markino are very attractive.”

This advertisement establishes 1903 as the date of the first London edition.

American Edition (L. C. Page) – 1903 or 1906?
Provenance: early ownership inscription in this copy dated 1903, Milwaukee, Wisconsin — providing early evidence of U.S. circulation.

This copy bears the imprint of L. C. Page & Co. of Boston and New York, a publisher well known for issuing U.S. export versions of British children’s books. Although Page did not date the volume, there is compelling contemporary evidence pointing to 1906 as the likely year of the American issue.

A notice published in The New York Times Saturday Review of Books and Art,New York, Saturday, June 2, 1906, p. 360, reported:

“The enterprising [London publishers] Dean & Son, publishers of ‘The Foolish Dictionary,’ have been visiting the Boston publishers with results which will appear later on more than one list. Messrs. L. C. Page & Co. have two Oriental books in preparation, one of which is believed to be by the Japanese artist Yoshio Markino, whose ‘Colour’ books have recently attracted so much attention.”

This is confusing but likely just because a trade journal from 1906 first mentions a Dean & Page partnership in 1906 does not mean the collaboration began that year. Publishers frequently formalized or publicized relationships long after joint editions were already in circulation, so the book could easily have been printed and sold several years earlier—as confirmed by the 1903 gift inscription in this copy.

Condition : Complete. ( See photos) This copy shows typical aged wear of an early mechanical novelty book yet remains complete and structurally intact. The front cover exhibits some surface rubbing, soiling, and softened corners, though the lithography, calligraphy, and die-cut aperture remain legible and complete. The rear pastedown bears early inscriptions dated 1903 and a Milwaukee address stamp, with creasing, light losses, and soiling. The red cloth spine is worn with vertical splits and exposed gatherings, and both front and rear hinges have been reinforced with non-archival tape; the binding is fragile but holding. The original molded gutta-percha (or composition) head—an uncommon survival—is firmly seated behind the die-cut opening, retaining its three-dimensional features despite age wear. Interior pages show handling wear, edge tears, stains, and taped repairs, but all leaves appear present, and Markino’s color illustrations remain strong and attractive. Overall, the book is in Good condition for this notoriously delicate format, with its intact mechanical head making it an especially rare and significant example.

Rarity and Importance: Copies of this 1900s “Funny Face Series” are extremely uncommon, and examples retaining the original molded head are particularly rare. “The ‘flexible-faced’ books were among Dean & Son’s most curious novelties, but few survive complete. The moulded faces—usually made of gutta-percha or gypsum—were glued in position and were easily damaged or detached during use.
Yoshio Markino has undergone a major rediscovery over the last few years.. Because Markino produced very few children’s books—and almost none employing mechanical or novelty formats—any pre-1905 illustrated work by him is highly desirable. The present volume is his only known mechanical-head book, created before his rise to fame and never reissued thereafter.

The combination of an intact three-dimensional facial mechanism with Markino’s early illustrations makes this an important survival at the intersection of novelty-book history and Anglo-Japanese artistic exchange. Surviving copies of There Was a Little Man and He Had a Little Gun (Funny Face Series No. 1, c.1903) are exceptionally scarce. Only one institutional holding has been positively identified, and no other examples with the original mounted composition head have been documented in current bibliographies or major children’s-book reference collections. The digitized example held by Oxford University (Google Books, original from Oxford, digitized 9 September 2024), appears to be missing the original molded face, showing only the printed leaves.

Variant Note: Differences Between This Copy and the Oxford Edition:

This copy contains textual variants not found in the 1903 British edition, consistent with Page’s practice of adapting content for the U.S. market.

The Oxford University digital copy lists no American publisher, indicating that it represents the U.K. domestic issue of Dean & Son’s Funny Face Series No. 1. In contrast, the present copy carries both the Dean & Son imprint and that of L. C. Page & Co. of Boston and New York, identifying it as the American export issue. The rhyme sequence also differs substantially.

This copy contains two rhymes not present in the Oxford edition—Polly (Pollie) Flinders and There Was an Old Person of Norwich (a Lear limerick). It also omits three rhymes that appear in the Oxford sequence, yet the book is structurally complete and no leaves are missing. These variant rhymes are not recorded in any known bibliographic references, and their appearance here strongly suggests that the American export issue employed a different text block assembled specifically for L. C. Page & Co. The result is a genuine variant edition rather than a defective example, distinguished by its altered rhyme set, dual imprint, and surviving molded head.

Japanese Inscription and Artist’s Signature: The Japanese writing on the right side of the cover is part of the original printed design. It is not part of the story. It is an ornamental, classical-style inscription and signature added by Yoshio Markino. In the early 1900s, Markino often included decorative East Asian calligraphy on his book designs to emphasize his artistic identity and to give the book an “authentic Japanese” aesthetic that appealed strongly to Western publishers and readers. It translates to ‘Respectfully, Fugan. Drawn by Yoshio.’” Markino includes both a classical-style brush-name (“Fugan”) and his personal signature (“Brushed by Yoshio”)—a traditional East Asian artistic practice in which an artist presents both his poetic persona and his formal authorship.

This copy also lists L. C. Page & Co. of Boston and New York, indications an Texport edition. Which often carried the small “printed in London” notice that appears on bottom right hand side of the cover.

Content and Narrative Structure: Around 1900–1905, Japonisme was intensely fashionable, and Dean & Son capitalized on this trend by commissioning Yoshio Markino to reinterpret traditional English nursery rhymes through a Japanese visual lens. Rather than presenting a continuous narrative, the book offers a sequence of classic rhymes, each paired with a full-page color illustration in which Markino recasts familiar English scenes into Japanese ones: children appear in kimono, interiors include shoji screens and tea utensils, and landscapes incorporate Japanese architecture and vegetation. The sculpted mechanical head shows through the die-cut aperture on every leaf, so that the same expressive face becomes the “Little Man,” —creating the distinctive “funny face” effect for which the series was conceived. The rhymes appear in the following sequence with the ones on the right side being in color and showing the "Funny Face":

Each rhyme retains its traditional text but is visually transformed by Markino’s Japonisme-inflected style and by the repeated theatrical device of the same molded head performing a new role on every page.

Why Dean & Son Produced a Japanese-Themed Children’s Book Around 1900–1905,
Japonisme was at its peak in London, shaping everything from interior design to illustrated books. Dean & Son, long known for novelty formats, saw an opportunity to refresh their classic “Funny Face” mechanical series by pairing it with contemporary Japanese aesthetics. London publishers frequently hired freelance illustrators through art-school networks, and Yoshio Markino—newly arrived in London and struggling financially—actively sought commercial work. In his autobiography A Japanese Artist in London (1910), Markino remarks that he accepted “small commercial illustration jobs for children’s books and magazines,” making it highly likely that Dean engaged him as a freelance designer for this project. A Japanese artist interpreting classic English nursery rhymes offered Dean both novelty and marketing appeal. Markino’s distinctive watercolor style, Japanese motifs, and decorative calligraphy gave the familiar mechanical-head format a wholly new visual identity. His illustrations recast English rhymes in Japanese dress, interiors, landscapes, and color palettes—perfectly aligned with Western fascination with Japonisme. For Dean & Son, a “Japanese-designed Funny Face book” became a selling point in itself. In short, Dean produced a Japanese-themed children’s book because Japonisme sold—and because Markino, then little known and in need of work, provided a visually striking reinterpretation that revitalized one of the firm’s oldest novelty traditions. Once Markino rose to fame (1905–1910), publishers began promoting his name more prominently. Dean, however, never reissued or re-marketed this book after his rise in fame. That means the only Markino mechanical book was printed just once, before he was famous, and never again.

Biographical Note on Yoshio Markino (1869–1956)
Image: Yoshio Markino, “When I Was a Child.” Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Yoshio Markino was born Heiji Makino in 1869 in Komoro (today part of Toyota City), Japan, the son of a samurai family that placed great value on discipline, education, and the arts. In 1893, at the age of twenty-four, he sailed from Yokohama to San Francisco, where he studied at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art and lived for four difficult years. His early fascination with fog and atmospheric effects began in San Francisco, where he later said he first became obsessed with finding a way to paint mist. In 1897 he moved to London, the city he would call home for more than four decades. He lived in various neighborhoods—Greenwich, New Cross, Kensal Rise, Norwood, Brixton, and finally Kensington and Chelsea—supporting himself through small jobs and occasional illustration commissions while studying at South Kensington, Goldsmiths, and the Central School of Art. He worked for a time at the naval construction office of the Japanese Legation and even briefly for a stonemason in Norwood designing memorial angels, though he was let go because his angels looked “more like ballet girls than angels.”

Markino spent countless hours walking through London, entranced by the transform­ative effects of its fog, mist, and gaslight. He coined the word “greyfy” to describe the haze that softened and harmonized colors, and famously wrote: “It is the London mist which makes every colours beautifully softened … I do not feel I could live any other place but London.” His street scenes often included elegant English women, whose “willowy figures,” he said, seemed “more graceful than the crescent moon.” His distinctive painting method involved soaking the paper and beginning work while it was still damp, producing the blurred, luminous backgrounds he called his “silk-veil” technique.

Markino found significant success beginning with The Colour of London (1907), followed by The Colour of Paris (1908), The Colour of Rome (1909), and his memoir A Japanese Artist in London (1910). His commercial work of the early 1900s—including There Was a Little Man and He Had a Little Gun —was produced during years of hardship, when he accepted small illustration jobs to survive.

Today the largest holding of his work is preserved at the Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, which owns 42 oil paintings, 38 watercolors, and 4 prints.

Many of Yoshio Markino’s original artworks are also preserved in the Museum of London, which holds a significant group of his London street scenes and atmospheric watercolors. His work was admired by a number of prominent Edwardian writers, including H. G. Wells, who purchased one of Markino’s London pictures and remarked:

“I want to carry London to my Paris flat, and this picture is the concentrated essence of London.”

After returning to Japan during the Second World War, Markino lived quietly until his death in Kamakura on 18 October 1956 at the age of eighty-six.


Note on the American Publisher: L. C. Page & Co. (Boston and New York)
L. C. Page & Company was a major Boston publishing house founded by Lewis Coues Page, who entered the book trade soon after graduating from Harvard. In 1891 Page joined the firm of Estes & Lauriat, later becoming treasurer of its Joseph Knight Company division. When Knight resigned in 1896, Page assumed control and reorganized the firm under his own name as L. C. Page & Company.

Although the company briefly issued contemporary European writers such as Gabriele d’Annunzio, it quickly built its reputation on juvenile series and illustrated gift books. Its most successful early venture was the publication of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables series beginning in 1908. Even greater commercial success followed with Eleanor H. Porter’s Pollyanna (1913), which sold over a million copies in its first year and became a cultural phenomenon—the popularity of the book giving English the new word “Pollyanna.” Alongside children’s series, L. C. Page maintained a strong catalog of reprints of classic literature, issuing works by Victor Hugo, Sir Walter Scott, Dickens, and Dumas in handsome decorated bindings. They also published Our little Japanese cousin (L. C. Page & company, 1901), by Mary H. Wade and L. J. Bridgman (not a movable). Another example of a Dean book published in America by Page is The Valkyries: A Romance Founded on Wagner's Opera (London: Dean & Son, 1903; American edition: L. C. Page & Company, 1905) (not a movable)

The firm’s editorial conservatism, however, ultimately limited its survival. Lewis Page openly disdained what he termed “sophisticated literature”—especially modernist or foreign fiction—and insisted that the public preferred only established classics. As literary tastes shifted in the 1920s and 1930s, the company’s sales declined. Following Page’s death, the firm was acquired in 1957 by Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, who continued the L. C. Page imprint until 1980.

Reference: Documentation of the firm’s later history, including its acquisition by Farrar, Straus & Cudahy in 1957 (later Farrar, Straus & Giroux), appears in the Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc. Records, 1899–2003, held by the Manuscripts and Archives Division of The New York Public Library.

Collector’s Corner - the series:

This book is from Dean & Son’s innovative Flexible-Faced Story Books series. Each book in the series featured 16 pages and 8 oil-colored illustrations, paired with a sculpted flexible head originally designed to animate various expressions when matched to the scenes. The faces, made of gutta-percha, have since hardened over time but remain a marvel of early book engineering.

Titles in the Flexible-Faced Story Books Series:

1. The Merry Old Dame, Who Sings Fiddle-de-Dee – 1864

2. The Hearty Old Boy, Who Was Always the Same – 1864

3. The Jolly Old Man, Who Sings Down Derry Down – 1865

4. The Little Girl, or One Head as Good as Eight – 1867

5. Lady John Hodge, or The Unchangeable Dame – 1867

   An advertisement for Dean & Son’s Flexible-Faced Story Books was found in Sunday Employment: Short Tales for Sunday Reading by Frances Upcher Cousens (1870, pp. 137–138). The ad promotes the publisher’s “New Series of Flexible-Faced Story Books,” described as containing "a fund of amusement to both old and young." The text explains that “the head in the Picture can be made to assume various shapes, causing much merriment,” with a price of two shillings for “coloured pictures, half-bound, board, illuminated cover.”

   The same ad offers a specific description of The Flexible-Faced Merry Old Dame who sings ‘Fiddle-de-dee’, noting that her “whimsicalities” are humorously told and that her “squeezable elastic face… can be made to open his mouth, shut his eyes, and lengthen his face, at pleasure.” It compares her antics to those of her husband, The Jolly Old Man, whose face also “can be made long and short, or merry or sad, at will.”

The series was later echoed in the “Funny Face Series” issued in 1903, including titles such as:
( As seen in the Catalogue of Current Literature. Vol. 3, 1906, p. 12. accessed via google books)

• There Was a Little Man and He Had a Little Gun – Funny Face Series #1 (1903)

• Old Mother Hubbard – Funny Face Series #2 (1903)

Eastern Impress. “A Japanese Artist in London: Yoshio Markino.” Eastern Impression (blog), June 2016. https://easternimp.blogspot.com/2016/06/a-japanese-artist-in-london-yoshio.html.

Goodreads. “A Japanese Artist in London.” Goodreads.com. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4621350-a-japanese-artist-in-london.

Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Local Studies. “The Artist in the Mirror World: Yoshio Markino.” RBKC Local Studies Blog, September 19, 2013. https://rbkclocalstudies.wordpress.com/2013/09/19/the-artist-in-the-mirror-world-yoshio-markino/.

Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures. Edwardian London Through Japanese Eyes: The Art and Writings of Yoshio Markino, 1897–1915. https://www.sainsbury-institute.org/publications/edwardian-london-through-japanese-eyes-the-art-and-writings-of-yoshio-markino-1897-1915/.

Wikipedia. “Yoshio Markino.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshio_Markino

Bio - A Japanese Artist in London – Yoshio Markino,” Eastern Impressions blog, June 2016. https://easternimp.blogspot.com/2016/06/a-japanese-artist-in-london-yoshio.html