Chapter 4

The publications by "Felix Summerley," according to the list in "Fifty Years of Public Work," by Sir Henry Cole, K.C.B. (Bell, 1884), include: "Holbein's Bible Events," eight pictures, coloured by Mr. Linnell's sons, 4_s._ 6_d._; "Raffaelle's Bible Events," six pictures from the Loggia, drawn on stone by Mr. Linnell's children and coloured by them, 5_s._ 6_d._; "Albert Duerer's Bible Events," six pictures from Duerer's "Small Passion," coloured by the brothers Linnell; "Traditional Nursery Songs," containing eight pictures; "The Beggars coming to Town," by C. W. Cope, R.A.; "By, O my Baby!" by R. Redgrave, R.A.; "Mother Hubbard," by T. Webster, R.A.; "1, 2, 3, 4, 5," "Sleepy Head," "Up in a Basket," "Cat asleep by the Fire," by John Linnell, 4_s._ 6_d._, coloured; "The Ballad of Sir Hornbook," by Thos. Love Peacock, with eight pictures by H. Corbould, coloured, 4_s._ 6_d._ (A book with the same title, also described as a "grammatico-allegorical ballad," was published by N. Haites in 1818.) "Chevy Chase," with music and four pictures by Frederick Tayler, President of the Water-Colour Society, coloured, 4_s._ 6_d._; "Puck's Reports to Oberon"; Four new Faery Tales: "The Sisters," "Golden Locks," "Grumble and Cherry," "Arts and Arms," by C. A. Cole, with six pictures by J. H. Townsend, R. Redgrave, R.A., J. C. Horsley, R.A., C. W. Cope, R.A., and F. Tayler; "Little Red Riding Hood," with four pictures by Thos. Webster, coloured, 3_s._ 6_d._; "Beauty and the Beast," with four pictures by J. C. Horsley, R.A., coloured, 3_s._ 6_d._; "Jack and the Bean Stalk," with four pictures by C. W. Cope, R.A., coloured, 3_s._ 6_d._; "Cinderella," with four pictures by E. H. Wehnert, coloured, 3_s._ 6_d._; "Jack the Giant Killer," with four pictures by C. W. Cope, coloured, 3_s._ 6_d._; "The Home Treasury Primer," printed in colours, with drawing on zinc, by W. Mulready, R.A.; "Alphabets of Quadrupeds," selected from the works of Paul Potter, Karl du Jardin, Teniers, Stoop, Rembrandt, &c., and drawn from nature; "The Pleasant History of Reynard the Fox," with forty of the fifty-seven etchings made by Everdingen in 1752, coloured, 31_s._ 6_d._; "A Century of Fables," with pictures by the old masters.

To this list should be added--if it is not by "Felix Summerley," it is evidently conceived by the same spirit and published also by Cundall--"Gammer Gurton's Garland," by Ambrose Merton, with illustrations by T. Webster and others. This was also issued as a series of sixpenny books, of which Mr. Elkin Mathews owns a nearly complete set, in their original covers of gold and coloured paper.

It would be very easy to over-estimate the intrinsic merit of these books, but when you consider them as pioneers it would be hard to over-rate the importance of the new departure. To enlist the talent of the most popular artists of the period, and produce volumes printed in the best style of the Chiswick Press, with bindings and end-papers specially designed, and the whole "get up" of the book carefully considered, was certainly a bold innovation in the early forties. That it failed to be a profitable venture one may deduce from the fact that the "Felix Summerley" series did not run to many volumes, and that the firm who published them, after several changes, seems to have expired, or more possibly was incorporated with some other venture. The books themselves are forgotten by most booksellers to-day, as I have discovered from many fruitless demands for copies.

The little square pamphlets by F. H. Bayley, to which allusion has already been made, include "Blue Beard;" "Robinson Crusoe," and "Red Riding Hood," all published about 1845-6.

Whether "The Sleeping Beauty," then announced as in preparation, was published, I do not know. Their rhyming chronicle in the style of the "Ingoldsby Legends" is neatly turned, and the topical allusions, although out of date now, are not sufficiently frequent to make it unintelligible. The pictures (possibly by Alfred Crowquill) are conceived in a spirit of burlesque, and are full of ingenious conceits and no little grim vigour. The design of Robinson Crusoe roosting in a tree--

And so he climbs up a very tall tree, And fixes himself to his comfort and glee, Hung up from the end of a branch by his breech, Quite out of all mischievous quadrupeds' reach. A position not perfectly easy 't is true, But yet at the same time consoling and new--

reproduced on p. 13, shows the wilder humour of the illustrations. Another of Blue Beard, and one of the wolf suffering from undigested grandmother, are also given. They need no comment, except to note that in the originals, printed on a coloured tint with the high lights left white, the ferocity of Blue Beard is greatly heightened. The wolf, "as he lay there brimful of grandmother and guilt," is one of the best of the smaller pictures in the text.

Other noteworthy books which appeared about this date are Mrs. Felix Summerley's "Mother's Primer," illustrated by W. M[ulready?], Longmans, 1843; "Little Princess," by Mrs. John Slater, 1843, with six charming lithographs by J. C. Horsley, R.A. (one of which is reproduced on p. 11); the "Honey Stew," of the Countess Bertha Jeremiah How, 1846, with coloured plates by Harrison Weir; "Early Days of English Princes," with capital illustrations by John Franklin; and a series of Pleasant Books for Young Children, 6_d._ plain and 1_s._ coloured, published by Cundall and Addey.

In 1846 appeared a translation of De La Motte Fouque's romances, "Undine" being illustrated by John Tenniel, jun., and the following volumes by J. Franklin, H. C. Selous, and other artists. The Tenniel designs, as the frontispiece reproduced on p. 20 shows clearly, are interesting both in themselves and as the earliest published work of the famous _Punch_ cartoonist. The strong German influence they show is also apparent in nearly all the decorations. "The Juvenile Verse and Picture Book" (1848), also contains designs by Tenniel, and others by W. B. Scott and Sir John Gilbert. The ideal they established is maintained more or less closely for a long period. "Songs for Children" (W. S. Orr, 1850); "Young England's Little Library" (1851); Mrs. S. C. Hall's "Number One," with pictures by John Absolon (1854); "Stories about Dogs," with "plates by Thomas Landseer" (Bogue, _c._ 1850); "The Three Bears," illustrated by Absolon and Harrison Weir (Addey and Co., no date); "Nursery Poetry" (Bell and Daldy, 1859), may be noted as typical examples of this period.

In "Granny's Story Box" (Piper, Stephenson, and Spence, about 1855), a most delicious collection of fairy tales illustrated by J. Knight, we find the author in his preface protesting against the opinion of a supposititious old lady who "thought all fairy tales were abolished years ago by Peter Parley and the _Penny Magazine_." These fanciful stories deserve to be republished, for they are not old-fashioned, even if their pictures are.

To what date certain delightfully printed little volumes, issued by Tabart and Co., 157 Bond Street, may be ascribed I know not--probably some years before the time we are considering, but they must not be overlooked. The title of one, "Mince Pies for Christmas," suggests that it is not very far before, for the legend of Christmas festivities had not long been revived for popular use.

"The Little Lychetts," by the author of "John Halifax," illustrated by Henry Warren, President of the New Society of Painters in Water-Colours (now the R.I.) is remarkable for the extremely uncomely type of children it depicts; yet that its charm is still vivid, despite its "severe" illustrations, you have but to lend it to a child to be convinced quickly.

"Jack's Holiday," by Albert Smith (undated), suggests a new field of research which might lead us astray, as Smith's humour is more often addressed primarily to adults. Indeed, the effort to make this chronicle even representative, much less exhaustive, breaks down in the fifties, when so much good yet not very exhilarating material is to be found in every publisher's list. John Leech in "The Silver Swan" of Mdme. de Chatelaine; Charles Keene in "The Adventures of Dick Bolero" (Darton, no date), and "Robinson Crusoe" (drawn upon for illustration here), and others of the _Punch_ artists, should find their works duly catalogued even in this hasty sketch; but space compels scant justice to many artists of the period, yet if the most popular are left unnoticed such omission will more easily right itself to any reader interested in the subject.

Many show influences of the Gothic revival which was then in the air, but only those which have some idea of book decoration as opposed to inserted pictures. For a certain "formal" ornamentation of the page was in fashion in the "forties" and "fifties," even as it is to-day.

To the artists named as representative of this period one must not forget to add Mr. Birket Foster, who devoted many of his felicitous studies of English pastoral life to the adornment of children's books. But speaking broadly of the period from the Queen's Accession to 1865, except that the subjects are of a sort supposed to appeal to young minds, their conception differs in no way from the work of the same artists in ordinary literature. The vignettes of scenery have childish instead of grown-up figures in the foregrounds; the historical or legendary figures are as seriously depicted in the one class of books as in the other. Humour is conspicuous by its absence--or, to be more accurate, the humour is more often in the accompanying anecdote than in the picture. Probably if the authorship of hundreds of the illustrations of "Peter Parley's Annuals" and other books of this period could be traced, artists as famous as Charles Keene might be found to have contributed. But, owing to the mediocre wood-engraving employed, or to the poor printing, the pictures are singularly unattractive. As a rule, they are unsigned and appear to be often mere pot-boilers--some no doubt intentionally disowned by the designer--others the work of 'prentice hands who afterwards became famous. Above all they are, essentially, illustrations to children's books only because they chanced to be printed therein, and have sometimes done duty in "grown-up" books first. Hence, whatever their artistic merits, they do not appeal to a student of our present subject. They are accidentally present in books for children, but essentially they belong to ordinary illustrations.

Indeed, speaking generally, the time between "Felix Summerley" and _Walter Crane_, which saw two Great Exhibitions and witnessed many advances in popular illustration, was too much occupied with catering for adults to be specially interested in juveniles. Hence, notwithstanding the names of "illustrious illustrators" to be found on their title-pages, no great injustice will be done if we leave this period and pass on to that which succeeded it. For the Great Exhibition fostered the idea that a smattering of knowledge of a thousand and one subjects was good. Hence the chastened gaiety of its mildly technical science, its popular manuals by Dr. Dionysius Lardner, and its return in another form to the earlier ideal that amusement should be combined with instruction. All sorts of attempts were initiated to make Astronomy palatable to babies, Botany an amusing game for children, Conchology a parlour pastime, and so on through the alphabet of sciences down to Zoology, which is never out of favour with little ones, even if its pictures be accompanied by a dull encylopaedia of fact.

Therefore, except so far as the work of certain illustrators, hereafter noticed, touches this period, we may leave it; not because it is unworthy of most serious attention, for in Sir John Gilbert, Birket Foster, Harrison Weir, and the rest, we have men to reckon with whenever a chronicle of English illustration is in question, but only because they did not often feel disposed to make their work merely amusing. In saying this it is not suggested that they should have tried to be always humorous or archaic, still less to bring down their talent to the supposed level of a child; but only to record the fact that they did not. For instance, Sir John Gilbert's spirited compositions to a "Boy's Book of Ballads" (Bell and Daldy) as you see them mixed with other of the master's work in the reference scrap-books of the publishers, do not at once separate themselves from the rest as "juvenile" pictures.

Nor as we approach the year 1855 (of the "Music Master"), and 1857 (when the famous edition of Tennyson's Poems began a series of superbly illustrated books), do we find any immediate change in the illustration of children's books. The solitary example of Sir Edward Burne-Jones's efforts in this direction, in the frontispiece and title-page to Maclaren's "The Fairy Family" (Longmans, 1857), does not affect this statement. But soon after, as the school of Walker and Pinwell became popular, there is a change in books of all sorts, and Millais and Arthur Hughes, two of the three illustrators of the notable "Music Master," come into our list of children's artists. At this point the attempt to weave a chronicle of children's books somewhat in the date of their publication must give way to a desultory notice of the most prominent illustrators. For we have come to the beginning of to-day rather than the end of yesterday, and can regard the "sixties" onwards as part of the present.

It is true that the Millais of the wonderful designs to "The Parables" more often drew pictures of children than of children's pet themes, but all the same they are entirely lovable, and appeal equally to children of all ages. But his work in this field is scanty; nearly all will be found in "Little Songs for me to Sing" (Cassell), or in "Lilliput Levee" (1867), and these latter had appeared previously in _Good Words_. Of Arthur Hughes's work we will speak later.

Another artist whose work bulks large in our subject--Arthur Boyd Houghton--soon appears in sight, and whether he depicted babies at play as in "Home Thoughts and Home Scenes," a book of thirty-five pictures of little people, or imagined the scenes of stories dear to them in "The Arabian Nights," or books like "Ernie Elton" or "The Boy Pilgrims," written especially for them, in each he succeeded in winning their hearts, as every one must admit who chanced in childhood to possess his work. So much has been printed lately of the artist and his work, that here a bare reference will suffice.

Arthur Hughes, whose work belongs to many of the periods touched upon in this rambling chronicle, may be called _the_ children's "black-and-white" artist of the "sixties" (taking the date broadly as comprising the earlier "seventies" also), even as Walter Crane is their "limner in colours." His work is evidently conceived with the serious make-believe that is the very essence of a child's imagination. He seems to put down on paper the very spirit of fancy. Whether as an artist he is fully entitled to the rank some of his admirers (of whom I am one) would claim, is a question not worth raising here--the future will settle that for us. But as a children's illustrator he is surely illustrator-in-chief to the Queen of the Fairies, and to a whole generation of readers of "Tom Brown's Schooldays" also. His contributions to "Good Words for the Young" would alone entitle him to high eminence. In addition to these, which include many stories perhaps better known in book form, such as: "The Boy in Grey" (H. Kingsley), George Macdonald's "At the Back of the North Wind," "The Princess and the Goblin," "Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood," "Gutta-Percha Willie" (these four were published by Strahan, and now may be obtained in reprints issued by Messrs. Blackie), and "Lilliput Lectures" (a book of essays for children by Matthew Browne), we find him as sole illustrator of Christina Rossetti's "Sing Song," "Five Days' Entertainment at Wentworth Grange," "Dealings with the Fairies," by George Macdonald (a very scarce volume nowadays), and the chief contributor to the first illustrated edition of "Tom Brown's Schooldays." In Novello's "National Nursery Rhymes" are also several of his designs.

This list, which occupies so small a space, represents several hundred designs, all treated in a manner which is decorative (although it eschews the Duerer line), but marked by strong "colour." Indeed, Mr. Hughes's technique is all his own, and if hard pressed one might own that in certain respects it is not impeccable. But if his textures are not sufficiently differentiated, or even if his drawing appears careless at times--both charges not to be admitted without vigorous protest--granting the opponent's view for the moment, it would be impossible to find the same peculiar tenderness and naive fancy in the work of any other artist. His invention seems inexhaustible and his composition singularly fertile: he can create "bogeys" as well as "fairies."

It is true that his children are related to the sexless idealised race of Sir Edward Burne-Jones's heroes and heroines; they are purged of earthy taint, and idealised perhaps a shade too far. They adopt attitudes graceful if not realistic, they have always a grave serenity of expression; and yet withal they endear themselves in a way wholly their own. It is strange that a period which has bestowed so much appreciation on the work of the artists of "the sixties" has seen no knight-errant with "Arthur Hughes" inscribed on his banner--no exhibition of his black-and-white work, no craze in auction-rooms for first editions of books he illustrated. He has, however, a steady if limited band of very faithful devotees, and perhaps--so inconsistent are we all--they love his work all the better because the blast of popularity has not trumpeted its merits to all and sundry.

Three artists, often coupled together--Walter Crane, Randolph Caldecott, and Kate Greenaway--have really little in common, except that they all designed books for children which were published about the same period. For Walter Crane is the serious apostle of art for the nursery, who strove to beautify its ideal, to decorate its legends with a real knowledge of architecture and costume, and to "mount" the fairy stories with a certain archaeological splendour, as Sir Henry Irving has set himself to mount Shakespearean drama. Caldecott was a fine literary artist, who was able to express himself with rare facility in pictures in place of words, so that his comments upon a simple text reveal endless subtleties of thought. Indeed, he continued to make a fairly logical sequence of incidents out of the famous nonsense paragraph invented to confound mnemonics by its absolute irrelevancy. Miss Greenaway's charm lies in the fact that she first recognised quaintness in what had been considered merely "old fashion," and continued to infuse it with a glamour that made it appear picturesque. Had she dressed her figures in contemporary costume most probably her work would have taken its place with the average, and never obtained more than common popularity.

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-scenes_ 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 mediaeval 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.

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.