Children's Books and Their Illustrators

by Gleeson White

ILLUSTRATION FROM "THE RED FAIRY BOOK." BY LANCELOT SPEED (LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.)

ILLUSTRATION FROM "THE RED FAIRY BOOK." BY LANCELOT SPEED (LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.)

Arthur Hughes, whose work belongs to many of the periods touched upon in this rambling chronicle, may be called the children's "black-and-white" artist of the "sixties" (taking the date broadly as comprising the earlier "seventies" also), even as Walter Crane is their "limner in colours." His work is evidently conceived with the serious make-believe that is the very essence of a child's imagination. He seems to put down on paper the very spirit of fancy. Whether as an artist he is fully entitled to the rank some of his admirers (of whom I am one) would claim, is a question not worth raising here—the future will settle that for us. But as a children's illustrator he is surely illustrator-in-chief to the Queen of the Fairies, and to a whole generation of readers of "Tom Brown's Schooldays" also. His contributions to "Good Words for the Young" would alone entitle him to high eminence. In addition to these, which include many stories perhaps better known in book form, such as: "The Boy in Grey" (H. Kingsley), George Macdonald's "At the Back of the North Wind," "The Princess and the Goblin," "Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood," "Gutta-Percha Willie" (these four were published by Strahan, and now may be obtained in reprints issued by Messrs. Blackie), and "Lilliput Lectures" (a book of essays for children by Matthew Browne), we find him as sole illustrator of Christina Rossetti's "Sing Song," "Five Days' Entertainment at Wentworth Grange," "Dealings with the Fairies," by George Macdonald (a very scarce volume nowadays), and the chief contributor to the first illustrated edition of "Tom Brown's Schooldays." In Novello's "National Nursery Rhymes" are also several of his designs.

This list, which occupies so small a space, represents several hundred designs, all treated in a manner which is decorative (although it eschews the Dürer line), 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 naïve 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."

ILLUSTRATION FROM "DOWN THE SNOW STAIRS." BY GORDON BROWNE (BLACKIE AND SON)

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 archæological 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.