| "SO LIGHT OF FOOT, SO LIGHT OF SPIRIT." BY CHARLES ROBINSON |
ILLUSTRATION FROM "ENGLISH FAIRY TALES." BY J. D. BATTEN
(DAVID NUTT)
A small quarto series Routledge published at five shillings includes: "The Baby's Opera," "The Baby's Bouquet," "The Baby's Own Æsop." Another and larger quarto, "Flora's Feast" (1889), and "Queen Summer" (1891), were both published by Cassells, who issued also "Legends for Lionel" (1887). "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" (1885-6), Hawthorne's "A Wonder Book," first published in America, is a quarto volume with elaborate designs in colour; and "The Golden Primer" (1884), two vols., by Professor Meiklejohn (Blackwood) 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" (1888), "Carrots" (1876), "A Christmas Child" (1886), "Christmas-tree Land" (1884), "The Cuckoo Clock" (1877), "Four Winds Farm" (1887), "Grandmother Dear" (1878), "Herr Baby" (1881), "Little Miss Peggy" (1887), "The Rectory Children" (1889), "Rosy" (1882), "The Tapestry Room" (1879), "Tell me a Story," "Two Little Waifs," "Us" (1885), and "Children of the Castle" (1890). Earlier in date are "Stories from Memel" (1864), "Stories of Old," "Children's Sayings" (1861), two series, "Poor Match" (1861), "The Merry Heart," with eight coloured plates (Cassell); "King Gab's Story Bag" (Cassell), "Magic of Kindness" (1869), "Queen of the Tournament," "History of Poor Match," "Our Uncle's Old Home" (1872), "Sunny Days" (1871), "The Turtle Dove's Nest" (1890). Later come "The Necklace of Princess Fiorimonde" (1880), the famous edition of Grimm's "Household Stories" (1882), both published by Macmillan, and C. C. Harrison's "Folk and Fairy Tales" (1885), "The Happy Prince" (Nutt, 1888). Of these the "Grimm" and "Fiorimonde" are perhaps two of the most important illustrated books noted in these pages.
ILLUSTRATION FROM "THE WONDER CLOCK." BY HOWARD PYLE
(HARPER AND BROTHERS)
ILLUSTRATION FROM "THE WONDER CLOCK." BY HOWARD PYLE
(HARPER AND BROTHERS)
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" (Routledge, 1881), "Jackanapes," "Lob-lie-by-the-Fire," "Daddy Darwin's Dovecot," all by Mrs. Ewing (S.P.C.K.), "Baron Bruno" (Macmillan), "Some of Æsop's Fables" (Macmillan), and one or two others, are of secondary importance from our point of view here.