Children's Books and Their Illustrators

by Gleeson White

ILLUSTRATION FROM "ROBINSON CRUSOE" BY GORDON BROWNE
(BLACKIE AND SON)

But Mr. Walter Crane is almost unique in his profound sympathy with the fantasies he imagines. There is no trace of make-believe in his designs. On the contrary, he makes the old legends become vital, not because of the personalities he bestows on his heroes and fairy princesses—his people move often in a rapt ecstasy—but because the adjuncts of his mise-en-scènes are realised intimately. His prince is much more the typical hero than any particular person; his fair ladies might exchange places, and few would notice the difference; but when it comes to the environment, the real incidents of the story, then no one has more fully grasped both the dramatic force and the local colour. If his people are not peculiarly alive, they are in harmony with the re-edified cities and woods that sprang up under his pencil. He does not bestow the hoary touch of antiquity on his mediæval buildings; they are all new and comely, in better taste probably than the actual buildings, but not more idealised than are his people. He is the true artist of fairyland, because he recognises its practical possibilities, and yet does not lose the glamour which was never on sea or land. No artist could give more cultured notions of fairyland. In his work the vulgar glories of a pantomime are replaced by well-conceived splendour; the tawdry adjuncts of a throne-room, as represented in a theatre, are ignored. Temples and palaces of the early Renaissance, filled with graceful—perhaps a shade too suave—figures, embody all the charm of the impossible country, with none of the sordid drawbacks that are common to real life. In modern dress, as in his pictures to many of Mrs. Molesworth's stories, there is a certain unlikeness to life as we know it, which does not detract from the effect of the design; but while this is perhaps distracting in stories of contemporary life, it is a very real advantage in those of folk-lore, which have no actual date, and are therefore unafraid of anachronisms of any kind. The spirit of his work is, as it should be, intensely serious, yet the conceits which are showered upon it exactly harmonise with the mood of most of the stories that have attracted his pencil. Grimm's "Household Stories," as he pictured them, are a lasting joy. The "Bluebeard" and "Jack and the Beanstalk" toy books, the "Princess Belle Etoile," and a dozen others are nursery classics, and classics also of the other nursery where children of a larger growth take their pleasure.

ILLUSTRATION FROM "ROBINSON CRUSOE."
BY WILL PAGET.
(CASSELL AND CO.)

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.

ILLUSTRATION FROM "ENGLISH FAIRY TALES" BY J. D. BATTEN (DAVID NUTT)

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.