Most people imagine that the
famous cartoon characters Tom and Jerry have their origin in the USA. In fact
they have their origins in an earlier period on the other side of the Atlantic.
The tale begins in 1821, during the Georgian epoch, when the British capital
was enjoying a boom in publishing. It was a time when books, pamphlets and
newspapers were being produced in great numbers as literacy and the want for
reading material was increasing across society.
Among the most innovative of the
new publishers was Pierce Egan, a sporting journalist, who began a new series
of publications in 1821 entitled ‘Life in London or the Day and Night Scenes of
Jerry Hawthorne Esq and his eloquent friend Corinthian Tom, accompanied by Bob
Logic, the Oxonian, in their Rambles and Sprees Through the Metropolis’.
This eventually became so popular
that other publishers began producing various pirate versions of it. In a
couple of months it had even turned into a stage play; however, the title
changed to ‘Tom and Jerry or Life in London’. This same story found its way,
through an entrepreneur émigré, who transformed it into the cartoon we all know
today. The basic idea remains intact, in a new form of course, i.e. a cat and a
mouse.
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