The minor books at this time are rich in drawings by most of the artists who are our quest in this chronicle. The number, and the difficulty of ascertaining which of them contain worthy designs, must be the excuse for a very incomplete list, which includes Keats's Poetical Works, with a hundred and twenty designs by G. Scharf; The Children's Hour (Hunter, Edinburgh), W. Small, etc.; Jingles and Jokes for Little Folks, Paul Gray, etc.; The Magic Mirror, W. S. Gilbert (Strahan); Dame Dingle's Fairy Tales, J. Proctor (Cassell); Ellen Montgomery's Bookshelf, twelve plates in colour by J. D. Watson (Nisbet); An Old Fairy Tale, R. Doyle (Routledge); What the Moon saw, eighty illustrations by A. W. Bayes (Routledge); Ernie Elton the Lazy Boy, Patient Henry, The Boy Pilgrims, all illustrated by A. Boyd Houghton and published by Warne; Sybil and her Snowball, R. Barnes (Seeley); Stories told to a Child, Houghton, etc. (Strahan); Aunt Sally's Life, G. Thomas, (Bell); Mother's Last Words, M. E. Edwards, etc. (Jarrold), and Watts's Divine Songs (Sampson Low), with some fine Smalls and Birket Fosters.
Although the style of work that prevailed in 1865–66 was so widely popular, it did not find universal approval. Critics deplored the 'sketchy' style of Dalziels' engraving and, comparing it unfavourably with Longmans' New Testament, moaned, 'when shall we find again such engraving as in Mulready's drawings by Thompson.' In Don Quixote they owned Houghton's designs were clever, but thought, 'on the whole, the worthy knight deserved better treatment.' And so all along the line we find the then present contrasted with the golden past; even as many look back to-day to the golden 'sixties' from the commonplace 'nineties.' This time saw the beginning of the superb toy-books by Walter Crane—which are his masterpieces, and monuments to the skill and taste of Edmund Evans, their engraver and printer. For wood-block printing in colours, no western work has surpassed them even to this date.
Poems by Jean Ingelow (Longmans, 1867) is a very notable and scarce volume, which was published in the autumn of 1866. It contains twenty drawings by G. J. Pinwell, of which the seven to The High Tide are singularly fine; but that they suffered terribly at the engraver's hands some originals, in the possession of Mr. Joseph Pennell, prove only too plainly. J. W. North is represented by twenty-four, A. Boyd Houghton by sixteen, J. Wolf by nine, E. J. Poynter by one, W. Small by four, E. Dalziel by three, and T. Dalziel by twenty. The level of this fine book is singularly high, and it must needs be placed among the very best of one of the most fruitful years.
Another book published at this time, Ballad Stories of the Affections, by Robert Buchanan (Routledge, undated), contains some singularly fine examples of the work of G. J. Pinwell, W. Small, A. B. Houghton, E. Dalziel, T. Dalziel, J. Lawson, and J. D. Watson, engraved by the Brothers Dalziel; Signelil (pp. 7 and 9), Helga and Hildebrand (p. 17), The Two Sisters (p. 29), and Signe at the Wake (frontispiece) show Houghton at his best; Maid Mettelil (p. 47) exhibits Pinwell in an unusually decorative mood. Indeed, the thirty-four illustrations are all good, and the book is decidedly one of the most interesting volumes of the period, and unfortunately one least frequently met with to-day.
J. W. NORTH
'WAYSIDE POESIES'
GLEN OONA
J. W. NORTH
