Crane, Walter (Illustrator).
Aladdin.
Lane. .25
These richly colored Eastern pictures will give even little children a suggestion of the splendor of the Orient. Let us hope that they will never be too ready to answer the call of "New lamps for old ones."
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 archæological splendor.... As a maker of children's books, no one ever attempted the task he fulfilled so gayly, and no one since has beaten him on his own ground.
Gleeson White.
Crane, Walter (Illustrator).
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. Lane. .25
It seems hardly right to omit this edition of so celebrated a tale pictured by so celebrated an artist, yet Mr. Crane's work breathes mystery and Oriental cunning from every page, and should be given to our youngsters only after examination, as a highly-strung child might be frightened by it. The picture of the resourceful Morgiana filling the oil-jars, while a dreadful robber with saucer-like eyes peers from one of them, is awful indeed.