B O O K N O T E S Cases along the walls: Jacob (1785-1863) and Wilhelm illustrator, Edward Burne-Jones. Burne- (1786-1859) Grimm Jones provided eighty-seven illustrations Kate Greenaway (1846-1901) Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm studied law, for the Kelmscott Chaucer though Morris Kate Greenaway, the daughter of a mas- but in 1806, at the ages of twenty-one and himself designed twenty-six large initial ter engraver and a talented seamstress, is twenty-two respectively, they started collect- words, the border foliage, and the type one of the most well-known and beloved ing folktales. Both brothers became librar- ornaments. The edition consisted of 425 author/illustrators of modern times. ians and began publishing their collection copies, thirteen on vellum and the rest on Greenaway was influenced by her parents of folktales in 1812. Over the course of their handmade heavy linen paper. This book but also by William Morris and his return lives, they added tales and published six was the masterpiece of Morris’ Kelmscott to medieval sources of inspiration. She additional editions of their first collection. Press. A paper copy originally sold for £20, rose to great success by bringing some- The Grimm brothers’ published works are a very high cost at the time. thing of the style of the mid-nineteenth considered by many to be the best known century Pre-Raphaelite painters to her and most influential German-language Charles Dickens (1812-1870) captivating stories of childhood. books ever written. Dickens was a prolific nineteenth-century During her career in England from the Though editions that came later softened author whose serialized books made him 1870s to the 1890s, Greenaway produced the somewhat frightening and cruel stories, famous internationally. He is most noted more than 150 books. John Ruskin, the the Grimms’ tales were and remain a reflec- for his realistic portraits of industrialized giant of nineteenth-century art criticism, tion of pre-modern central European life society and for the unforgettable characters advised her to devote herself to painting. and society. he created. But perhaps because of her own memory His stories, as in both the Museum’s of a happy childhood, the need to support William Morris (1834-1896) first editions of Bleak House and Martin herself, and her astonishing popularity, and Kelmscott Press Chuzzlewit, often were accompanied by she chose to build her career on children’s If the Arts and Crafts movement could be illustrations by “Phiz” Browne. books. attributed to a single founder, that individual The vase on exhibit is one of a whole Her first book, Under the Window, was would be William Morris. His rejection of line of Weller pottery called “Dickensware” published in 1879 and sold 20,000 cop- Victorian design and his rebellion against and depicts Mr. Pecksniff, a hypocritical ies almost immediately. It was quickly industrial culture could not have been more architect to whom Martin Chuzzlewit is reprinted in an edition of 70,000. Her first complete or more inspiring to kindred spir- apprenticed. It was made about a half-cen- almanack in 1883 sold more than 90,000 its all over Europe and America. tury after Dickens’ book was published and copies. As a result, Greenaway’s designs As part of his return to the beauty of attests to the author’s enduring popularity began appearing on wallpaper, scarves, the handcrafted, Morris founded Kelmscott – which continues even today. fashions, dolls, and plates such as the Press in 1891. By its end in 1898, Kelmscott one included in this exhibition from the had produced fifty-three titles and more Kenneth Grahame (1859-1932) Museum’s collection. than 18,000 books. Setting out to surpass Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the The Language of Flowers, which may be the highest standards of past bookmaking, Willows, with its endearing adventures of Greenaway’s finest book, was published in Morris based his work on medieval sources Mole, Rat, Badger, and Toad, appeared 1884, and half of its first edition of 19,500 and paid exquisite attention to the paper, in 1908 and is the book for which the went to America. All her books were typefaces, colors, visual harmonies, and Scottish author is most beloved and reissued in 1900, and subsequent editions textures. remembered. But Wind and the Willows is continue to be published today as classic The Morse’s six leaves from Kelmscott’s only part of his legacy in children’s litera- literature that is at home in every child’s Works of Geoffrey Chaucer are testament ture. Earlier, Grahame had produced The library. to his success and prove the justice of his Golden Age, a collection of short stories Olympian reputation and that of his chief about a group of children. These were previously published sketches that he had tion at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Mary Dow Brine (1816-1913) written as a diversion while pursuing a New York until May. Mary Dow Brine, a native of New York, successful career at the Bank of England. is most famous for her inspirational poem, Illustrated by Maxfield Parrish, The Cases in the center: “Somebody’s Mother.” But for the Morse, Golden Age was published by John Lane, she is most noteworthy for My Boy and the publisher of The Yellow Book, after it The Sunbonnet Babies’ Primer I or On the Road to Slumberland, a collec- was rejected by an American publisher. Eulalie Osgood Grover (1873-1958) tion of twelve poems and lullabies. The “The cover of this first edition is filled with book was illustrated by Dora Wheeler, The Yellow Book (1894-1897) the optimism of the story and its time. The the daughter of Candace Wheeler, a The Yellow Book was conceived as a new gentle curves are typical of those found in partner in Louis C. Tiffany’s Associated type of journal that would bring the new French Art Nouveau; the shapes have the Artists group, and even more importantly, art of the late-nineteenth century to the innocence of the babies themselves. The the book was one of the very few that public. The color yellow represented a author lived in Winter Park. The book deals Tiffany published. rebellion against Victorian colors by its with the world a child sees, and it sold over The Morse acquired this rare book in nature and because of its reputation as the one million copies. 2006, and its acquisition brought to an color of “naughty” French novels. One Today’s world smiles at the naiveté of end the long search initiated years ago by of the most important periodicals of the these quaint characters who helped its Hugh McKean. 1890s, The Yellow Book marked the first grandparents learn to read. We read the serious attempt to market high culture to Sunbonnet Babies in Miss Anderson’s class in Walter Crane (1845-1915) mass audiences in England and America. College Hill, Pennsylvania, before the First Although Walter Crane was a successful This avant-garde quarterly journal was World War. We probably were isolated from painter represented in the Royal Academy, published only from 1894 to 1897. The the grimy side of things. But, then, no one he is most remembered as an illustra- Morse collection includes the full run of ever waited in the alley to sell us “crack,” tor. This reputation as one of the leading thirteen volumes. and the only alcohol we ever got was in a illustrators of his day rests on his contri- The Yellow Book featured work by syrup guaranteed to cure catarrh. butions to books on the one hand and to Aubrey Beardsley, who was its first art The Sunbonnet Babies are no longer in posters, pamphlets, and other propaganda editor, but it also included the work of schools. They are where they belong—in a for the advancement of socialism – a non- more conservative artists such as Kenneth museum where they will be cared for. They violent variety, it should be noted – on Grahame, author of The Wind in the are out of print and out of date. Alcohol the other. Willows and The Golden Age, the latter is recognized as a serious problem in some Crane, like his close friend William of which is represented in this exhibi- grade schools, and today’s children see a dif- Morris, the leader of the Arts and Crafts tion. The Yellow Book also published a ferent reality from that of a century ago. movement in England, sought to reform wide variety of writers including William We have cleared away the stuffiness of design and to promote social justice in his Butler Yeats and H.G. Wells. Noteworthy the world that produced books like The own time. was the inclusion of poetry and fiction Sunbonnet Babies’ Primer. But we are not at The Museum’s Crane books are espe- by women. all certain the world doesn’t need a little cially beautiful and fine examples of his But The Yellow Book’s emphasis was stuffiness.” floral work, his interpretations of nature, always on the modern and the aesthetic. and his interest in English medieval During its short life, it was regarded as – Hugh F. McKean (1908-1995) sources of inspiration. the epitome of style in English art and Director of the Morse Museum literature. From its founding in 1942 until his death Frank Brangwyn (1867-1956) Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898), Frank Brangwyn, artist, painter, engraver, Laurence Housman (1865-1959), and and designer, illustrated The Girl and the Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Faun. The son of a Welsh architect work- Aubrey Beardsley, Laurence Housman ing in Belgium, where he was born, (brother of the poet A.