Children's Books and Their Illustrators

by Gleeson White

"Some will be new works, some new combinations of old materials, and some reprints carefully cleared of impurities, without deterioration to the points of the story. All will be illustrated, but not after the usual fashion of children's books, in which it seems to be assumed that the lowest kind of art is good enough to give first impressions to a child. In the present series, though the statement may perhaps excite a smile, the illustrations will be selected from the works of Raffaelle, Titian, Hans Holbein, and other old masters. Some of the best modern artists have kindly promised their aid in creating a taste for beauty in little children." Did space permit, a selection from the reviews of the chief literary papers that welcomed the new venture would be instructive. There we should find that even the most cautious critic, always "hedging" and playing for safety, felt compelled to accord a certain amount of praise to the new enterprise.

It is true that "Felix Summerley" created only one type of the modern book. Possibly the "stories turned into satires" to which he alludes are the entirely amusing volumes by F. H. Bayley, the author of "A New Tale of a Tub." As it happened that these volumes were my delight as a small boy, possibly I am unduly fond of them; but it seems to me that their humour—à la Ingoldsby, it is true—and their exuberantly comic drawings, reveal the first glimpses of lighter literature addressed specially to children, that long after found its masterpieces in the "Crane" and "Greenaway" and "Caldecott" Toy Books, in "Alice in Wonderland," and in a dozen other treasured volumes, which are now classics. The chief claim for the Home Treasury series to be considered as the advance guard of our present sumptuous volumes, rests not so much upon the quality of their designs or the brightness of their literature. Their chief importance is that in each of them we find for the first time that the externals of a child's book are most carefully considered. Its type is well chosen, the proportions of its page are evidently studied, its binding, even its end-papers, show that some one person was doing his best to attain perfection. It is this conscious effort, whatever it actually realised, which distinguishes the result from all before.

It is evident that the series—the Home Treasury—took itself seriously. Its purpose was Art with a capital A—a discovery, be it noted, of this period. Sir Henry Cole, in a footnote to the very page whence the quotation above was extracted, discusses the first use of "Art" as an adjective denoting the Fine Arts.

ILLUSTRATION FROM "HOUSEHOLD STORIES FROM GRIMM." BY WALTER CRANE (MACMILLAN AND CO. 1882)

Here it is more than ever difficult to keep to the thread of this discourse. All that South Kensington did and failed to do, the æsthetic movement of the eighties, the new gospel of artistic salvation by Liberty fabrics and De Morgan tiles, the erratic changes of fashion in taste, the collapse of Gothic architecture, the triumph of Queen Anne, and the Arts and Crafts movement of the nineties—in short, all the story of Art in the last fifty years, from the new Law Courts to the Tate Gallery, from Felix Summerley to a Hollyer photograph, from the introduction of glyptography to the pictures in the Daily Chronicle, demand notice. But the door must be shut on the turbulent throng, and only children's books allowed to pass through.

The publications by "Felix Summerley," according to the list in "Fifty Years of Public Work," by Sir Henry Cole, K.C.B. (Bell, 1884), include: "Holbein's Bible Events," eight pictures, coloured by Mr. Linnell's sons, 4s. 6d.; "Raffaelle's Bible Events," six pictures from the Loggia, drawn on stone by Mr. Linnell's children and coloured by them, 5s. 6d.; "Albert Dürer's Bible Events," six pictures from Dürer's "Small Passion," coloured by the brothers Linnell; "Traditional Nursery Songs," containing eight pictures; "The Beggars coming to Town," by C. W. Cope, R.A.; "By, O my Baby!" by R. Redgrave, R.A.; "Mother Hubbard," by T. Webster, R.A.; "1, 2, 3, 4, 5," "Sleepy Head," "Up in a Basket," "Cat asleep by the Fire," by John Linnell, 4s. 6d., coloured; "The Ballad of Sir Hornbook," by Thos. Love Peacock, with eight pictures by H. Corbould, coloured, 4s. 6d. (A book with the same title, also described as a "grammatico-allegorical ballad," was published by N. Haites in 1818.) "Chevy Chase," with music and four pictures by Frederick Tayler, President of the Water-Colour Society, coloured, 4s. 6d.; "Puck's Reports to Oberon"; Four new Faëry Tales: "The Sisters," "Golden Locks," "Grumble and Cherry," "Arts and Arms," by C. A. Cole, with six pictures by J. H. Townsend, R. Redgrave, R.A., J. C. Horsley, R.A., C. W. Cope, R.A., and F. Tayler; "Little Red Riding Hood," with four pictures by Thos. Webster, coloured, 3s. 6d.; "Beauty and the Beast," with four pictures by J. C. Horsley, R.A., coloured, 3s. 6d.; "Jack and the Bean Stalk," with four pictures by C. W. Cope, R.A., coloured, 3s. 6d.; "Cinderella," with four pictures by E. H. Wehnert, coloured, 3s. 6d.; "Jack the Giant Killer," with four pictures by C. W. Cope, coloured, 3s. 6d.; "The Home Treasury Primer," printed in colours, with drawing on zinc, by W. Mulready, R.A.; "Alphabets of Quadrupeds," selected from the works of Paul Potter, Karl du Jardin, Teniers, Stoop, Rembrandt, &c., and drawn from nature; "The Pleasant History of Reynard the Fox," with forty of the fifty-seven etchings made by Everdingen in 1752, coloured, 31s. 6d.; "A Century of Fables," with pictures by the old masters.

ILLUSTRATION FROM "A WONDER BOOK FOR GIRLS AND BOYS." BY WALTER CRANE (OSGOOD, MCILVAINE AND CO. 1892)

To this list should be added—if it is not by "Felix Summerley," it is evidently conceived by the same spirit and published also by Cundall—"Gammer Gurton's Garland," by Ambrose Merton, with illustrations by T. Webster and others. This was also issued as a series of sixpenny books, of which Mr. Elkin Mathews owns a nearly complete set, in their original covers of gold and coloured paper.