Children's Books and Their Illustrators — John Shaqi
Children's Books and Their IllustratorsWhite, Gleeson
General
Children's Books and Their Illustrators
White, Gleeson
Children's literature; Illustrated books; Illustration of books; Illustrators
The amazing number of Mr. Gordon Browne's illustrations leaves a
would-be iconographer appalled. So many thousand designs--and all so
good--deserve a lengthened and exhaustive eulogy. But space absolutely
forbids it, and as a large number cater for older children than most of
the books here noticed, on that ground one may be forgiven the
inadequate notice. If an illustrator deserved to attract the attention
of collectors it is surely this one, and so fertile has he been that a
complete set of all his work would take no little time to get together.
Here are the titles of a few jotted at random: "Bonnie Prince Charlie,"
"For Freedom's Cause," "St. George for England," "Orange and Green,"
"With Clive in India," "With Wolfe in Canada," "True to the Old Flag,"
"By Sheer Pluck," "Held Fast for England," "For Name and Fame," "With
Lee in Virginia," "Facing Death," "Devon Boys," "Nat the Naturalist,"
"Bunyip Land," "The Lion of St. Mark," "Under Drake's Flag," "The Golden
Magnet," "The Log of the Flying Fish," "In the King's Name," "Margery
Merton's Girlhood," "Down the Snow Stairs," "Stories of Old Renown,"
"Seven Wise Scholars," "Chirp and Chatter," "Gulliver's Travels,"
"Robinson Crusoe," "Hetty Gray," "A Golden Age," "Muir Fenwick's
Failure," "Winnie's Secret" (all so far are published by Blackie and
Son). "National Nursery Rhymes," "Fairy Tales from Grimm," "Sintram, and
Undine," "Sweetheart Travellers," "Five, Ten and Fifteen," "Gilly
Flower," "Prince Boohoo," "A Sister's Bye-hours," "Jim," and "A Flock of
Four," are all published by Gardner, Darton & Co., and "Effie," by
Griffith & Farran. When one realises that not a few of these books
contain a hundred illustrations, and that the list is almost entirely
from two publishers' catalogues, some idea of the fecundity of Mr.
Gordon Browne's output is gained. But only a vague idea, as his
"Shakespeare," with hundreds of drawings and a whole host of other
books, cannot be even mentioned. It is sufficient to name but one--say
the example from "Robinson Crusoe" (Blackie), reproduced on page 32--to
realise Mr. Gordon Browne's vivid and picturesque interpretation of
fact, or "Down the Snow Stairs" (Blackie), also illustrated, with a
grotesque owl-like creature, to find that in pure fantasy his exuberant
imagination is no less equal to the task. In "Chirp and Chatter"
(Blackie), fifty-four illustrations of animals masquerading as human
show delicious humour. At times his technique appears somewhat hasty,
but, as a rule, the method he adopts is as good as the composition he
depicts. He is in his own way the leader of juvenile illustration of the
non-Dürer school.
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM "KATAWAMPUS." BY ARCHIE MACGREGOR.
(DAVID NUTT)]
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM "TO TELL THE KING THE SKY IS FALLING."
BY ALICE WOODWARD (BLACKIE AND SON. 1896)]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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