Dictionary of 20th century British book illustrators.
Alan Horne The Dictionary of 20th Century British Book Illustrators. Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Antique Collectors' Club, 1994. 456 pp., $60.50u.s. (cloth). ISBN 1-85149-108-2.With Alan Horne's The Dictionary of 20th Century British Book Illustrators, the Antique Collectors' Club has published another of its sumptuous and beautifully designed `books on books.' Horne's Dictionary, with at least a thousand entries for book illustrators working in Britain between 1915 and 1985, black-and-white illustrations on every page, about 150 beautifully reproduced coloured plates, and some sixty pages of introductory essays, all printed on high quality paper and impeccably bound, is indeed a collector's item. Moreover, this beautiful book is also a work of utility. Like its predecessor, The Dictionary of British Book Illustrators and Caricaturists 1800-1914 by Simon Houfe (revised and reprinted under the title The Dictionary of 19th Century British Book Illustrators, Antique Collectors' Club, 1994), which is really a companion volume, The Dictionary of 20th Century British Book Illustrators will be a major reference source for both bibliophiles and scholars working in the field of illustrated books.
Horne's introductory material, which features his essays on `British Book Illustration 1915-1985,' `The Revival of Wood Engraving,' `Commercial Art,' and `Book Jackets and Covers and Paperback Wrappers,' as well as an article by specialist Brian Alderson, `Some Notes on Children's Book Illustration 1915-1985,' provides an excellent context for the subsequent dictionary entries, particularly since the themes established here are picked up in individual entries later. The bibliographies which follow these introductory essays also offer useful direction for further study.
In the introductory essays, Horne offers a balanced argument for the importance of commercial art in the development of illustration. These views are reinforced in the many listings of poster and advertising work recorded in the subsequent dictionary entries. For example, in the entry for Edward Ardizzone, one of the twentieth century's most highly acclaimed book illustrators, and one whose far-reaching influence is evident both in the many entries in which his name is mentioned and in the illustrative plates which visually demonstrate his impact on the artistic style of British illustrators, Horne includes information about his periodical illustrations, his cover designs, book jackets, posters, and advertising work, as well as his fine book illustration for the works of Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope, and Eleanor Farjeon. Such a comprehensive approach to the art of illustration does much to validate Horne's contention that `the subordination of artistic integrity to the need for financial gain' is not an inevitable outcome of commercial art (p. 26).
Given the title of the work, however, with its emphasis on book illustrators, so much attention to other kinds of illustration sometimes seems overdone. This is especially true for the space Horne gives to artists whose metier was the comic strip or the political cartoon. While such illustrative work is fascinating, in a work whose provenance is the illustrated book itself, and whose limited space necessarily demands selectivity, one wonders about the rationale which gives textual space to cartoonists such as Frank Bellamy and George Heath, who are not really book illustrators, while omitting any data on Alan Odle, who is mentioned in a number of entries on other artists but receives none for himself apart from the reference `See Houfe.' Such cross-references to Houfe's book make the previous volume truly a necessary companion to Horne's -- so much so, indeed, that without both works before her, the researcher would often be frustrated in her search for data on certain book artists working in the twentieth century.
The entries which comprise most of the Dictionary's pages are clearly laid out and easily read, with an excellent use of capitals and bold print to highlight important aspects and diacritical marks to direct cross-references. For each artist, Horne includes biographical information, and often some critical assessment, as well as (where applicable) lists of books illustrated, books written and illustrated, periodical contributions, exhibits, collections, and bibliographic sources. For easy reference, black-and-white illustrations are almost always proximate to their relevant entries, either on the same or the facing page. Where a colour plate representing the artist's work is available, the number of the plate is given at the bottom of the entry. This facilitates the movement from text to image, especially since the coloured plates are usually some pages removed from the dictionary entry.
One aspect of the dictionary entries that is especially helpful is the inclusion of artists' theories on illustration. Another is the fine attention paid to each artist's method(s) of illustration, and their preferred medium. The connections between schools and styles of illustration, as well as those between individual artists, the emphasis on the importance of publishers in the production of illustrated books, and the balancing of a comprehensive scope with a meticulous attention to detail make Horne's Dictionary an invaluable reference source that builds on, but extends, previous work such as Brigid Peppin and Lucy Micklethwait's Dictionary of British Book Illustrators: The Twentieth Century (London: John Murray, 1983). To facilitate such connections, it would have been helpful to have an index which would enable the reader to search cross-references in such fields as influence, school, medium, publishers, book titles, and the like.
In such a compendious work, it is inevitable that there will be a few errors, but The Dictionary of 20th Century Book Illustrators has been meticulously edited, and is remarkably free of these in its 456 pages. Two minor errors include an inaccurate birth date for Noel Rooke (1981 rather than 1881) and an incorrect title for Annabel Kidston's illustration for Matthew Arnold's `The Forsaken Mermaid' [sic] (p. 277). As Kidston's full-frontal illustration of the title figure makes patently clear even without recourse to Arnold's poem, the sea-creature in question is a Merman, not a Mermaid. Errors of a more serious nature include those few entries where one wishes that Horne's impressive scholarly sleuthing could have probed a little farther into original sources. For example, the entry on Florence Harrison refers the reader to Houfe for information, despite the fact that the flourishing dates given (1877-1925) are from Peppin rather than Houfe, who gives Harrison's active dates as 1887-1914. In fact, Harrison illustrated for Blackies into the thirties, her last known work being an illustrated version of Jean Ingelow's Mopsa the Fairy, retold by Dorothy King (Blackie and Son 1932).
Despite such occasional lapses, Alan Horne's compendious The Dictionary of 20th Century British Book Illustrators is a splendid reference book whose lavish production, detailed information, and critical framework provide source material that scholars and collectors will return to again and again as they work in the burgeoning field of the illustrated book.
LORRAINE JANZEN KOOISTRA
Nipissing University
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| Publication: | Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada |
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| Article Type: | Book review |
| Date: | Sep 22, 1996 |
| Words: | 1104 |
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