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Even the dreary text need not have made the illustrators quite so dull, as we know that Randolph Caldecott would have made an illustrated "Bradshaw" amusing; but most of his earlier predecessors show no less power in making anything they touched "un-funny." Nor as art do their pictures interest you any more than as anecdotes.

Of course the cost of coloured engravings prohibited their lavish use. All were tinted by hand, sometimes with the help of stencil plates, but more often by brush. The print colourers, we are told, lived chiefly in the Pentonville district, or in some of the poorer streets near Leicester Square. A few survivors are still to be found; but the introduction first of lithography, and later of photographic processes, has killed the industry, and even the most fanatical apostle of the old crafts cannot wish the "hand-painter" back again. The outlines were either cut on wood, as in the early days of printing until the present, or else engraved on metal. In each case all colour was painted afterwards, and in scarce a single instance is there any attempt to obtain an harmonious scheme such as is often found in the tinted mezzo-tints of the same period.

Of works primarily intended for little people, an "Hieroglyphical Bible" for the amusement and instruction of the younger generation may be noted. This was a mixture of picture-puns and broken words, after the fashion of the dreary puzzles still published in snippet weeklies. It is a melancholy attempt to turn Bible texts to picture puzzles, a book permitted by the unco' guid to children on wet Sunday afternoons, as some younger members of large families, whose elder brothers' books yet lingered forty or even fifty years after publication, are able to endorse with vivid and depressed remembrance. Foxe's "Book of Martyrs" and Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" are of the same type, and calculated to fill a nervous child with grim terrors, not lightened by Watts's "Divine and Moral Songs," that gloated on the dreadful hell to which sinful children were doomed, "with devils in darkness, fire and chains." But this painful side of the subject is not to be discussed here. Luckily the artists--except in the "grown-up" books referred to--disdained to enforce the terrors of Dr. Watts, and pictured less horrible themes.

With Cruikshank we encounter almost the first glimpse of the modern ideal. His "Grimm's Fairy Tales" are delightful in themselves, and marvellous in comparison with all before, and no little after.

Still confining ourselves to the pre-Victorian period, although the works in question were popular several decades later, we find "Sandford and Merton" , "The Swiss Family Robinson," the beginning of "Peter Parley's Annals," and a vast number of other books with the same pseudonym appended, and a host of didactic works, a large number of which contained pictures of animals and other natural objects, more or less well drawn. But the pictures in these are not of any great consequence, merely reflecting the average taste of the day, and very seldom designed from a child's point of view.

This very inadequate sketch of the books before 1837 is not curtailed for want of material, but because, despite the enormous amount, very few show attempts to please the child; to warn, to exhort, or to educate are their chief aims. Occasionally a Bewick or an artist of real power is met with, but the bulk is not only dull, but of small artistic value. That the artist's name is rarely given must not be taken as a sign that only inept draughtsmen were employed, for in works of real importance up to and even beyond this date we often find his share ignored. After a time the engraver claims to be considered, and by degrees the designer is also recognised; yet for the most part illustration was looked upon merely as "jam" to conceal the pill. The old Puritan conception of art as vanity had something to do with this, no doubt; for adults often demand that their children shall obey a sterner rule of life than that which they accept themselves.

Before passing on, it is as well to summarise this preamble and to discover how far children's books had improved when her Majesty came to the throne. The old woodcut, rough and ill-drawn, had been succeeded by the masterpieces of Bewick, and the respectable if dull achievements of his followers. In the better class of books were excellent designs by artists of some repute fairly well engraved. Colouring by hand, in a primitive fashion, was applied to these prints and to impressions from copperplates. A certain prettiness was the highest aim of most of the latter, and very few were designed only to amuse a child. It seems as if all concerned were bent on unbending themselves, careful to offer grains of truth to young minds with an occasional terrible falsity of their attitude; indeed, its satire and profound analysis make it superfluous to reopen the subject. As one might expect, the literature, "genteel" and dull, naturally desired pictures in the same key. The art of even the better class of children's books was satisfied if it succeeded in being "genteel," or, as Miss Limpenny would say, "cumeelfo." Its ideal reached no higher, and sometimes stopped very far below that modest standard. This is the best one can say of pre-Victorian illustration for children.

To quote from his own words: "During this period , my young children becoming numerous, their wants induced me to publish a rather long series of books, which constituted 'Summerley's Home Treasury,' and I had the great pleasure of obtaining the welcome assistance of some of the first artists of the time in illustrating them--Mulready, R.A., Cope, R.A., Horsley, R.A., Redgrave, R.A., Webster, R.A., Linnell and his three sons, John, James, and William, H. J. Townsend, and others.... The preparation of these books gave me practical knowledge in the technicalities of the arts of type-printing, lithography, copper and steel-plate engraving and printing, and bookbinding in all its varieties in metal, wood, leather, &c."

Copies of the books in question appear to be very rare. It is doubtful if the omnivorous British Museum has swallowed a complete set; certainly at the Art Library of South Kensington Museum, where, if anywhere, we might expect to find Sir Henry Cole completely represented, many gaps occur.

How far Mr. Joseph Cundall, the publisher, should be awarded a share of the credit for the enterprise is not apparent, but his publications and writings, together with the books issued later by Cundall and Addey, are all marked with the new spirit, which so far as one can discover was working in many minds at this time, and manifested itself most conspicuously through the Pre-Raphaelites and their allies. This all took place, it must be remembered, long before 1851. We forget often that if that exhibition has any important place in the art history of Great Britain, it does but prove that much preliminary work had been already accomplished. You cannot exhibit what does not exist; you cannot even call into being "exhibition specimens" at a few months notice, if something of the same sort, worked for ordinary commerce, has not already been in progress for years previously.

Almost every book referred to has been examined anew for the purposes of this article. As a whole they might fail to impress a critic not peculiarly interested in the matter. But if he tries to project himself to the period that produced them, and realises fully the enormous importance of first efforts, he will not estimate grudgingly their intrinsic value, but be inclined to credit them with the good things they never dreamed of, as well as those they tried to realise and often failed to achieve. Here, without any prejudice for or against the South Kensington movement, it is but common justice to record Sir Henry Cole's share in the improvement of children's books; and later on his efforts on behalf of process engraving must also not be forgotten.

To return to the books in question, some extracts from the original prospectus, which speaks of them as "purposed to cultivate the Affections, Fancy, Imagination, and Taste of Children," are worth quotation:

"The character of most children's books published during the last quarter of a century, is fairly typified in the name of Peter Parley, which the writers of some hundreds of them have assumed. The books themselves have been addressed after a narrow fashion, almost entirely to the cultivation of the understanding of children. The many tales sung or said from time to time immemorial, which appealed to the other, and certainly not less important elements of a little child's mind, its fancy, imagination, sympathies, affections, are almost all gone out of memory, and are scarcely to be obtained. 'Little Red Riding Hood,' and other fairy tales hallowed to children's use, are now turned into ribaldry as satires for men; as for the creation of a new fairy tale or touching ballad, such a thing is unheard of. That the influence of all this is hurtful to children, the conductor of this series firmly believes. He has practical experience of it every day in his own family, and he doubts not that there are many others who entertain the same opinions as himself. He purposes at least to give some evidence of his belief, and to produce a series of works, the character of which may be briefly described as anti-Peter Parleyism.

It would be very easy to over-estimate the intrinsic merit of these books, but when you consider them as pioneers it would be hard to over-rate the importance of the new departure. To enlist the talent of the most popular artists of the period, and produce volumes printed in the best style of the Chiswick Press, with bindings and end-papers specially designed, and the whole "get up" of the book carefully considered, was certainly a bold innovation in the early forties. That it failed to be a profitable venture one may deduce from the fact that the "Felix Summerley" series did not run to many volumes, and that the firm who published them, after several changes, seems to have expired, or more possibly was incorporated with some other venture. The books themselves are forgotten by most booksellers to-day, as I have discovered from many fruitless demands for copies.

The little square pamphlets by F. H. Bayley, to which allusion has already been made, include "Blue Beard;" "Robinson Crusoe," and "Red Riding Hood," all published about 1845-6.

Whether "The Sleeping Beauty," then announced as in preparation, was published, I do not know. Their rhyming chronicle in the style of the "Ingoldsby Legends" is neatly turned, and the topical allusions, although out of date now, are not sufficiently frequent to make it unintelligible. The pictures are conceived in a spirit of burlesque, and are full of ingenious conceits and no little grim vigour. The design of Robinson Crusoe roosting in a tree--

And so he climbs up a very tall tree, And fixes himself to his comfort and glee, Hung up from the end of a branch by his breech, Quite out of all mischievous quadrupeds' reach. A position not perfectly easy 't is true, But yet at the same time consoling and new--

To what date certain delightfully printed little volumes, issued by Tabart and Co., 157 Bond Street, may be ascribed I know not--probably some years before the time we are considering, but they must not be overlooked. The title of one, "Mince Pies for Christmas," suggests that it is not very far before, for the legend of Christmas festivities had not long been revived for popular use.

Many show influences of the Gothic revival which was then in the air, but only those which have some idea of book decoration as opposed to inserted pictures. For a certain "formal" ornamentation of the page was in fashion in the "forties" and "fifties," even as it is to-day.

Therefore, except so far as the work of certain illustrators, hereafter noticed, touches this period, we may leave it; not because it is unworthy of most serious attention, for in Sir John Gilbert, Birket Foster, Harrison Weir, and the rest, we have men to reckon with whenever a chronicle of English illustration is in question, but only because they did not often feel disposed to make their work merely amusing. In saying this it is not suggested that they should have tried to be always humorous or archaic, still less to bring down their talent to the supposed level of a child; but only to record the fact that they did not. For instance, Sir John Gilbert's spirited compositions to a "Boy's Book of Ballads" as you see them mixed with other of the master's work in the reference scrap-books of the publishers, do not at once separate themselves from the rest as "juvenile" pictures.

Nor as we approach the year 1855 , and 1857 , do we find any immediate change in the illustration of children's books. The solitary example of Sir Edward Burne-Jones's efforts in this direction, in the frontispiece and title-page to Maclaren's "The Fairy Family" , does not affect this statement. But soon after, as the school of Walker and Pinwell became popular, there is a change in books of all sorts, and Millais and Arthur Hughes, two of the three illustrators of the notable "Music Master," come into our list of children's artists. At this point the attempt to weave a chronicle of children's books somewhat in the date of their publication must give way to a desultory notice of the most prominent illustrators. For we have come to the beginning of to-day rather than the end of yesterday, and can regard the "sixties" onwards as part of the present.

Another artist whose work bulks large in our subject--Arthur Boyd Houghton--soon appears in sight, and whether he depicted babies at play as in "Home Thoughts and Home Scenes," a book of thirty-five pictures of little people, or imagined the scenes of stories dear to them in "The Arabian Nights," or books like "Ernie Elton" or "The Boy Pilgrims," written especially for them, in each he succeeded in winning their hearts, as every one must admit who chanced in childhood to possess his work. So much has been printed lately of the artist and his work, that here a bare reference will suffice.

This list, which occupies so small a space, represents several hundred designs, all treated in a manner which is decorative , but marked by strong "colour." Indeed, Mr. Hughes's technique is all his own, and if hard pressed one might own that in certain respects it is not impeccable. But if his textures are not sufficiently differentiated, or even if his drawing appears careless at times--both charges not to be admitted without vigorous protest--granting the opponent's view for the moment, it would be impossible to find the same peculiar tenderness and na?ve fancy in the work of any other artist. His invention seems inexhaustible and his composition singularly fertile: he can create "bogeys" as well as "fairies."

It is true that his children are related to the sexless idealised race of Sir Edward Burne-Jones's heroes and heroines; they are purged of earthy taint, and idealised perhaps a shade too far. They adopt attitudes graceful if not realistic, they have always a grave serenity of expression; and yet withal they endear themselves in a way wholly their own. It is strange that a period which has bestowed so much appreciation on the work of the artists of "the sixties" has seen no knight-errant with "Arthur Hughes" inscribed on his banner--no exhibition of his black-and-white work, no craze in auction-rooms for first editions of books he illustrated. He has, however, a steady if limited band of very faithful devotees, and perhaps--so inconsistent are we all--they love his work all the better because the blast of popularity has not trumpeted its merits to all and sundry.

Three artists, often coupled together--Walter Crane, Randolph Caldecott, and Kate Greenaway--have really little in common, except that they all designed books for children which were published about the same period. For Walter Crane is the serious apostle of art for the nursery, who strove to beautify its ideal, to decorate its legends with a real knowledge of architecture and costume, and to "mount" the fairy stories with a certain archaeological splendour, as Sir Henry Irving has set himself to mount Shakespearean drama. Caldecott was a fine literary artist, who was able to express himself with rare facility in pictures in place of words, so that his comments upon a simple text reveal endless subtleties of thought. Indeed, he continued to make a fairly logical sequence of incidents out of the famous nonsense paragraph invented to confound mnemonics by its absolute irrelevancy. Miss Greenaway's charm lies in the fact that she first recognised quaintness in what had been considered merely "old fashion," and continued to infuse it with a glamour that made it appear picturesque. Had she dressed her figures in contemporary costume most probably her work would have taken its place with the average, and never obtained more than common popularity.

Without a shade of disrespect towards all the other artists represented in this special number, had it been devoted solely to Mr. Walter Crane's designs, it would have been as interesting in every respect. There is probably not a single illustrator here mentioned who would not endorse such a statement. For as a maker of children's books, no one ever attempted the task he fulfilled so gaily, and no one since has beaten him on his own ground. Even Mr. Howard Pyle, his most worthy rival, has given us no wealth of colour-prints. So that the famous toy books still retain their well-merited position as the most delightful books for the nursery and the studio, equally beloved by babies and artists.

Although a complete iconography of Mr. Walter Crane's work has not yet been made, the following list of such of his children's books as I have been able to trace may be worth printing for the benefit of those who have not access to the British Museum; where, by the way, many are not included in that section of its catalogue devoted to "Crane, Walter."

The famous series of toy books by Walter Crane include: "The Railroad A B C," "The Farmyard A B C," "Sing a Song of Sixpence," "The Waddling Frog," "The Old Courtier," "Multiplication in Verse," "Chattering Jack," "How Jessie was Lost," "Grammar in Rhyme," "Annie and Jack in London," "One, Two, Buckle my Shoe," "The Fairy Ship," "Adventures of Puffy," "This Little Pig went to Market," "King Luckieboy's Party," "Noah's Ark Alphabet," "My Mother," "The Forty Thieves," "The Three Bears," "Cinderella," "Valentine and Orson," "Puss in Boots," "Old Mother Hubbard," "The Absurd A B C," "Little Red Riding Hood," "Jack and the Beanstalk," "Blue Beard," "Baby's Own Alphabet," "The Sleeping Beauty." All these were published at sixpence. A larger series at one shilling includes: "The Frog Prince," "Goody Two Shoes," "Beauty and the Beast," "Alphabet of Old Friends," "The Yellow Dwarf," "Aladdin," "The Hind in the Wood," and "Princess Belle Etoile." All these were published from 1873 onwards by Routledge, and printed in colours by Edmund Evans.

A small quarto series Routledge published at five shillings includes: "The Baby's Opera," "The Baby's Bouquet," "The Baby's Own AEsop." Another and larger quarto, "Flora's Feast" , and "Queen Summer" , were both published by Cassells, who issued also "Legends for Lionel" . "Pan Pipes," an oblong folio with music was issued by Routledge. Messrs. Marcus Ward produced "Slate and Pencilvania," "Pothooks and Perseverance," "Romance of the Three Rs," "Little Queen Anne" , Hawthorne's "A Wonder Book," first published in America, is a quarto volume with elaborate designs in colour; and "The Golden Primer" , two vols., by Professor Meiklejohn is, like all the above, in colour.

Of a series of stories by Mrs. Molesworth the following volumes are illustrated by Mr. Crane:--"A Christmas Posy" , "Carrots" , "A Christmas Child" , "Christmas-tree Land" , "The Cuckoo Clock" , "Four Winds Farm" , "Grandmother Dear" , "Herr Baby" , "Little Miss Peggy" , "The Rectory Children" , "Rosy" , "The Tapestry Room" , "Tell me a Story," "Two Little Waifs," "Us" , and "Children of the Castle" . Earlier in date are "Stories from Memel" , "Stories of Old," "Children's Sayings" , two series, "Poor Match" , "The Merry Heart," with eight coloured plates ; "King Gab's Story Bag" , "Magic of Kindness" , "Queen of the Tournament," "History of Poor Match," "Our Uncle's Old Home" , "Sunny Days" , "The Turtle Dove's Nest" . Later come "The Necklace of Princess Fiorimonde" , the famous edition of Grimm's "Household Stories" , both published by Macmillan, and C. C. Harrison's "Folk and Fairy Tales" , "The Happy Prince" . Of these the "Grimm" and "Fiorimonde" are perhaps two of the most important illustrated books noted in these pages.

Randolph Caldecott founded a school that still retains fresh hold of the British public. But with all respect to his most loyal disciple, Mr. Hugh Thomson, one doubts if any successor has equalled the master in the peculiar subtlety of his pictured comment upon the bare text. You have but to turn to any of his toy books to see that at times each word, almost each syllable, inspired its own picture; and that the artist not only conceived the scene which the text called into being, but each successive step before and after the reported incident itself. In "The House that Jack Built," "This is the Rat that Ate the Malt" supplies a subject for five pictures. First the owner carrying in the malt, next the rat driven away by the man, then the rat peeping up into the deserted room, next the rat studying a placard upside down inscribed "four measures of malt," and finally, the gorged animal sitting upon an empty measure. So "This is the Cat that Killed the Rat" is expanded into five pictures. The dog has four, the cat three, and the rest of the story is amplified with its secondary incidents duly sought and depicted. This literary expression is possibly the most marked characteristic of a facile and able draughtsman. He studied his subject as no one else ever studied it--he must have played with it, dreamed of it, worried it night and day, until he knew it ten times better than its author. Then he portrayed it simply and with irresistible vigour, with a fine economy of line and colour; when colour is added, it is mainly as a gay convention, and not closely imitative of nature. The sixteen toy books which bear his name are too well known to make a list of their titles necessary. A few other children's books--"What the Blackbird Said" , "Jackanapes," "Lob-lie-by-the-Fire," "Daddy Darwin's Dovecot," all by Mrs. Ewing , "Baron Bruno" , "Some of AEsop's Fables" , and one or two others, are of secondary importance from our point of view here.

Alfred Crowquill most probably contributed all the pictures to "Robinson Crusoe," "Blue Beard," and "Red Riding Hood" told in rhyme by F. W. N. Bayley, which have been noticed among his books of the "forties." One of the full pages, which appear to be lithographs, is clearly signed. He also illustrated the adventures of "Master Tyll Owlglass," an edition of "Baron Munchausen," "Picture Fables," "The Careless Chicken," "Funny Leaves for the Younger Branches," "Laugh and Grow Thin," and a host of other volumes. Yet the pictures in these, amusing as they are in their way, do not seem likely to attract an audience again at any future time.

Mr. H. S. Marks designed two nursery books for Messrs. Routledge, and contributed to many others, including J. W. Elliott's "National Nursery Rhymes" , whence our illustration has been taken. Two series of picture books containing mediaeval figures with gold background, by J. Moyr Smith, if somewhat lacking in the qualities which appeal to children, may have played a good part in educating them to admire conventional flat treatment, with a decorative purpose that was unusual in the "seventies," when most of them appeared.

In the "sixties" and "seventies" were many illustrators of children's books who left no great mark except on the memories of those who were young enough at the time to enjoy their work thoroughly, if not very critically. Among these may be placed William Brunton, who illustrated several of the Right Hon. G. Knatchbull-Hugessen's fairy stories, "Tales at Tea Time" for instance, and was frequent among the illustrators of Hood's Annuals. Charles H. Ross and creator of "Ally Sloper," the British Punchinello, produced at least one memorable book for children. "Queens and Kings and other Things," a folio volume printed in gold and colour, with nonsense rhymes and pictures, almost as funny as those of Edward Lear himself. "The Boy Crusoe," and many other books of somewhat ephemeral character are his, and Routledge's "Every Boy's Magazine" contains many of his designs. Just as these pages are being corrected the news of his death is announced.

Others, like George Du Maurier, so rarely touched the subject that they can hardly be regarded as wholly belonging to our theme. Yet "Misunderstood," by Florence Montgomery , illustrated by Du Maurier, is too popular to leave unnoticed. Mr. A. W. Bayes, who has deservedly won fame in other fields, illustrated "Andersen's Tales" , probably his earliest work, as a contemporary review speaks of the admirable designs "by an artist whose name is new to us."

Of late he has changed his manner in line, showing at times, especially in "Twilight Land" , the influence of Vierge, but even in that book the frontispiece and many other designs keep to his earlier manner.

Mr. H. J. Ford's work occupies so much space in the library of a modern child, that it seems less necessary to discuss it at length here, for he is found either alone or co-operating with Mr. Jacomb Hood and Mr. Lancelot Speed, in each of the nine volumes of fairy tales and true stories , edited by Mr. Andrew Lang, and published by Longmans. More than that, at the Fine Art Society in May 1895, Mr. Ford exhibited seventy-one original drawings, chiefly those for the "Yellow Fairy Book," so that his work is not only familiar to the inmates of the nursery, but to modern critics who disdain mere printed pictures and care for nothing but autograph work. Certainly his designs have often lost much by their great reduction, for many of the originals were almost as large as four of these pages. His work is full of imagination, full of detail; perhaps at times a little overcrowded, to the extent of confusion. But children are not averse from a picture that requires much careful inspection to reveal all its story; and Mr. Ford's accessories all help to reiterate the main theme. As these eight volumes have an average of 100 pictures in each, and Mr. Ford has designed the majority, it is evident that, although his work is almost entirely confined to one series, it takes a very prominent place in current juvenile literature. That he must by this time have established his position as a prime favourite with the small people goes without saying.

A. B. Frost, by his cosmopolitan fun, "understanded of all people," has probably aroused more hearty laughs by his inimitable books than even Caldecott himself. "Stuff and Nonsense," and "The Bull Calf," T. B. Aldrich's "Story of a Bad Boy," and many another volume of American origin, that is now familiar to every Briton with a sense of humour, are the most widely known. It is needless to praise the literally inimitable humour of the tragic series "Our Cat took Rat Poison." In Lewis Carroll's "Rhyme? and Reason?" , Mr. Frost shared with Henry Holiday the task of illustrating a larger edition of the book first published under the title of "Phantasmagoria" ; he illustrated also "A Tangled Tale" , by the same author, and this is perhaps the only volume of British origin of which he is sole artist. Mr. Henry Holiday was responsible for the classic pictures to "The Hunting of the Snark" by Lewis Carroll .

Mr. Harry Furniss's coloured toy-books--"Romps"--are too well known to need description, and many another juvenile volume owes its attraction to his facile pencil. Of these, the two later "Lewis Caroll's"--"Sylvia and Bruno," and "Sylvia and Bruno, Concluded," are perhaps most important. As a curious narrative, "Travels in the Interior" must not be forgotten. It certainly called forth much ingenuity on the part of the artist. In "Romps," and in all his work for children, there is an irrepressible sense of movement and of exuberant vitality in his figures; but, all the same, they are more like Fred Walker's idyllic youngsters having romps than like real everyday children.

Mr. Linley Sambourne's most ingenious pen has been all too seldom employed on children's books. Indeed, one that comes first to memory, the "New Sandford and Merton" , is hardly entitled to be classed among them, but the travesty of the somewhat pedantic narrative, interspersed with fairly amusing anecdotes, that Thomas Day published in 1783, is superb. No matter how familiar it may be, it is simply impossible to avoid laughing anew at the smug little Harry, the sanctimonious tutor, or the naughty Tommy, as Mr. Sambourne has realised them. The "Anecdotes of the Crocodile" and "The Presumptuous Dentist" are no less good. The way he has turned a prosaic hat-rack into an instrument of torture would alone mark Mr. Sambourne as a comic draughtsman of the highest type. Nothing he has done in political cartoons seems so likely to live as these burlesques. A little known book, "The Royal Umbrella" , which contains the delightful "Cat Gardeners" here reproduced, and the very well-known edition of Charles Kingsley's "Water Babies" , are two other volumes which well display his moods of less unrestrained humour. "The Real Robinson Crusoe" and Lord Brabourne's "Friends and Foes of Fairyland" , well-nigh exhaust the list of his efforts in this direction.

The work of the Danish illustrator, Lorenz Froelich, is almost as familiar in English as in Continental nurseries, yet his name is often absent from the title-pages of books containing his drawings. Perhaps those attributed to him formally that are most likely to be known by British readers are in "When I was a Little Girl" and "Nine Years Old" , but, unless memory is treacherous, one remembers toy-books in colours , that were obviously from his designs. A little known French book, "Le Royaume des Gourmands," exhibits the artist in a more fanciful aspect, where he makes a far better show than in some of his ultra-pretty realistic studies. Other French volumes, "Histoire d'un Bouch?e de Pain," "Lili ? la Campagne," "La Journ?e de Mademoiselle Lili," and the "Alphabet de Mademoiselle Lili," may possibly be the original sources whence the blocks were borrowed and adapted to English text. But the veteran illustrator has done far too large a number of designs to be catalogued here. For grace and truth, and at times real mastery of his material, no notice of children's artists could abstain from placing him very high in their ranks.

Oscar Pletsch is another artist--presumably a German--whose work has been widely republished in England. In many respects it resembles that of Froelich, and is almost entirely devoted to the daily life of the inmates of the nursery, with their tiny festivals and brief tragedies. It would seem to appeal more to children than their elders, because the realistic transcript of their doings by his hand often lacks the touch of pathos, or of grown-up humour that finds favour with adults.

The mass of children's toy-books published by Messrs. Dean, Darton, Routledge, Warne, Marcus Ward, Isbister, Hildesheimer and many others cannot be considered exhaustively, if only from the fact that the names of the designers are frequently omitted. Probably Messrs. Kronheim & Co., and other colour-printers, often supplied pictures designed by their own staff. Mr. Edmund Evans, to whom is due a very large share of the success of the Crane, Caldecott, and Kate Greenaway books, more frequently reproduced the work of artists whose names were considered sufficiently important to be given upon the books themselves. A few others of Routledge's toy-books besides those mentioned are worth naming. Mr. H.S. Marks, R.A., designed two early numbers of their shilling series: "Nursery Rhymes" and "Nursery Songs;" and to J. D. Watson may be attributed the "Cinderella" in the same series. Other sixpenny and shilling illustrated books were by C. H. Bennett, C. W. Cope, A. W. Bayes, Julian Portch, Warwick Reynolds, F. Keyl, and Harrison Weir.

The "Greedy Jim," by Bennett, is only second to "Struwwlpeter" itself, in its lasting power to delight little ones. If out of print it deserves to be revived.

The books illustrated by past or present students of the Birmingham School will be best noticed in a group, as, notwithstanding some distinct individuality shown by many of the artists, especially in their later works, the idea that links the group together is sufficiently similar to impart to all a certain resemblance. In other words, you can nearly always pick out a "Birmingham" illustration at a glance, even if it would be impossible to confuse the work of Mr. Gaskin with that of Miss Levetus.

Mrs. Gaskin is also familiar to readers of THE STUDIO. Perhaps her "A, B, C." , and "Horn Book Jingles" , a unique book in shape and style, contain the best of her work so far.

"Russian Fairy Tales" is distinguished by the designs of C. M. Gere, who has done comparatively little illustration; hence the book has more than usual interest, and takes a far higher artistic rank than its title might lead one to expect.

Miss Bradley has illustrated one of Messrs. Blackie's happiest volumes this year. "Just Forty Winks" , shows that the artist has steered clear of the "Alice in Wonderland" model, which the author can hardly be said to have avoided. Miss Bradley has also illustrated the prettily decorated book of poems, "Songs for Somebody," by Dollie Radford . The two series of "Children's Singing Games" are among the most pleasant volumes the Birmingham school has produced. Both are decorated by Winifred Smith, who shows considerable humour as well as ingenuity.

Among volumes illustrated, each by the members of the Birmingham school, are "A Book of Pictured Carols" , and Mr. Baring-Gould's "Nursery Rhymes" . Both these volumes contain some of the most representative work of Birmingham, and the latter, with its rich borders and many pictures, is a book that consistently maintains a very fine ideal, rare at any time, and perhaps never before applied to a book for the nursery. Indeed were it needful to choose a single book to represent the school, this one would stand the test of selection.

In Messrs. Dent's "Banbury Cross" series, the Misses Violet and Evelyn Holden illustrated "The House that Jack Built"; Sidney Heath was responsible for "Aladdin," and Mrs. H. T. Adams decorated "Tom Thumb, &c."

Mr. Laurence Housman is more than an illustrator of fairy tales; he is himself a rare creator of such fancies, and has, moreover, an almost unique power of conveying his ideas in the medium. His "Farm in Fairyland" and "A House of Joy" have often been referred to in THE STUDIO. Yet, at the risk of reiterating what nobody of taste doubts, one must place his work in this direction head and shoulders above the crowd--even the crowd of excellent illustrators--because its amazing fantasy and caprice are supported by cunning technique that makes the whole work a "picture," not merely a decoration or an interpretation of the text. As a spinner of entirely bewitching stories, that hold a child spell-bound, and can be read and re-read by adults, he is a near rival of Andersen himself.

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