Month: July 2016

Alfred Edward Jackson

AE Jackson was born in 1873. He was an exceptional and awarded student at the Camden School of Art, at the age of 18 his work was already in exhibition at the Royal Academy.

He started is long career as an illustrator of well known magazines and comics, and only a few years later has he produced his unforgettable and bestseller versions of Gulliver’s Travels (1914), Alice’s Adventures (1915), Tales From Shakespeare (1919), The Water Babies (1920), Tales from the Arabian Nights (1920) and Robinson Crusoe (1921).

His dazzling purples, pinks and muted blues gave live to an extraordinary Alice.

(first published by Hoddern and Stoughton and by Milford in 1915)

Charles Folkard

Charles Folkard was a gifted and highly productive illustrator of children’s books. His illustrations of Pinocchio, the Children’s Shakespeare and Grimm’s Fairy Tales and the Arabian Nights are among some of his most notorious works. Folkard is also recognised for the Daily Mail cartoon strips The Adventures of Teddy Tail, which were later published as a series of books.

His Alice’s illustrations were first published as Songs from Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass (A. & C. Black, 1921). Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland using these same illustrations was only published in 1929 (also by A. & C. Black). Beautiful, as you can see…

Mervyn Peake

Mervyn Peake was born in China (1911) from a missionary family. He moved to England in 1923 and entered the Royal Academy in 29. Through his career, crossed by World War II, he published several novels and collections of poems valued also by his own beautiful illustrations. In 1951 he won the Heinemann Prize for Literature for Gormenghast and The Glassblowers and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

When invited to illustrate other authors, Mervin Peake felt that by accepting the task he would have to “subordinate totally to the book, and slide into another man’s soul”.

marvyn p 2

His illustrated version of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland uses a fine cross-hatching style and was first published by The Continental Book Company/Zephyr Press (Stockholm, 1946) an edition “not to be introduced into the British Empire or the USA“.

The UK version was published by Allan Wingate in 1954.

marvyn p 3

Maria Louise Kirk

M.L. Kirk, as she usually signed her work, attended the Philadelphia School of Design for Women and the Academy of Fine Arts also in Philadelphia. Award for her excellent work, she is known for her illustrations for children’s books.

Alice in Wonderland illustrated by Maria L. Kirk was first published by Stokes USA in 1904, thus previous to the 1907 boom.