ILLUSTRATION FROM "NURSERY RHYMES" BY PAUL WOODROFFE
(GEORGE ALLEN. 1897)
In Messrs. Dent's "Banbury Cross" series, the Misses Violet and Evelyn Holden illustrated "The House that Jack Built"; Sidney Heath was responsible for "Aladdin," and Mrs. H. T. Adams decorated "Tom Thumb, &c."
Mr. Laurence Housman is more than an illustrator of fairy tales; he is himself a rare creator of such fancies, and has, moreover, an almost unique power of conveying his ideas in the medium. His "Farm in Fairyland" and "A House of Joy" (both published by Kegan Paul and Co.) have often been referred to in The Studio. Yet, at the risk of reiterating what nobody of taste doubts, one must place his work in this direction head and shoulders above the crowd—even the crowd of excellent illustrators—because its amazing fantasy and caprice are supported by cunning technique that makes the whole work a "picture," not merely a decoration or an interpretation of the text. As a spinner of entirely bewitching stories, that hold a child spell-bound, and can be read and re-read by adults, he is a near rival of Andersen himself.
H. Granville Fell, better known perhaps from his decorations to "The Book of Job," and certain decorated pages in the English Illustrated Magazine, illustrated three of Messrs. Dent's "Banbury Cross" series—"Cinderella, &c.," "Ali Baba," and "Tom Hickathrift." His work in these is full of pleasant fancy and charming types.
A very sumptuous setting of the old fairy tale, "Beauty and the Beast," in this case entitled "Zelinda and the Monster" (Dent, 1895), with ten photogravures after paintings by the Countess of Lovelace, must not be forgotten, as its text may bring it into our present category.
Miss Rosie Pitman, in "Maurice and the Red Jar" (Macmillan), shows much elaborate effort and a distinct fantasy in design. "Undine" (Macmillan, 1897) is a still more successful achievement.
Richard Heighway is one of the "Banbury Cross" illustrators in "Blue Beard," &c. (Dent), and has also pictured Æsop's "Fables," with 300 designs (in Macmillan's Cranford series).
Mr. J. F. Sullivan—who must not be confused with his namesake—is one who has rarely illustrated works for little children, but in the famous "British Workman" series in Fun, in dozens of Tom Hood's "Comic Annuals," and elsewhere, has provoked as many hearty laughs from the nursery as from the drawing-room. In "The Flame Flower" (Dent) we find a side-splitting volume, illustrated with 100 drawings by the author. For this only Mr. J. F. Sullivan has plunged readers deep in debt, and when one recalls the amazing number of his delicious absurdities in the periodical literature of at least twenty years past, it seems astounding to find that the name of so entirely well-equipped a draughtsman is yet not the household word it should be.
E. J. Sullivan, with eighty illustrations to the Cranford edition of "Tom Brown's Schooldays," comes for once within our present limit.
J. D. Batten is responsible for the illustration of so many important collections of fairy tales that it is vexing not to be able to reproduce a selection of his drawings, to show the fertility of his invention and his consistent improvement in technique. The series, "Fairy Tales of the British Empire," collected and edited by Mr. Jacobs, already include five volumes—English, More English, Celtic, More Celtic, and Indian, all liberally illustrated by J. D. Batten, as are "The Book of Wonder Voyages," by J. Jacobs (Nutt), and "Fairy Tales from the Arabian Nights," edited by E. Dixon, and a second series, both published by Messrs. J. M. Dent and Co. "A Masque of Dead Florentines" (Dent) can hardly be brought into our subject.