Rumblings With a Helping of Harry Clarke

From AbeBooks’ Most Expensive Sales in October 2009, we have:

6. Original pen, ink, and water-color used for the dust wrapper of The Fairy Tales of Perrault by Harry Clarke - $4,500

Clarke’s set of pen, ink and water-color used to create the intricate dust cover for The Fairy Tales of Perrault.

There is no image for the piece, but the list included the above image of a first edition. The beauty of the internet (and SurLaLune) is that one can see many of Harry Clarke's illustrations for free. No, it's not as magical as holding a first edition with the exquisitely produced prints, but it certainly accommodates the wallet.


There are an abundance of galleries on the web now for Golden Age illustrators, but SurLaLune was one of the first. I'm grateful I had the experience of creating it because I learned so much about illustration and fairy tales along the way, something I wouldn't have done otherwise. I'm still amazed that a throw-away HTML programming assignment turned into this and is still growing after 11 years, almost a third of my life.

You might imagine I do all of this to make money. Not quite. I don't make half enough through associate links to justify the time and expense I put into the site. I joke that it doesn't pay the bills, but it keeps me from creating new ones as I pursue my passions, at least most of the time. I do this because I love learning and SurLaLune is a repository of my knowledge base in one area. I get to share it with others--finding several errors along the way as I learn more--and have made friends and found other opportunities to learn through the years.

Not sure what brought all of that up today, but I will segue into my hope to discuss a book a day for the rest of the month in addition to the usual miscellaneous bits and pieces I offer on this blog. I have a list of books longer than my arm to post about. Not stacks, mind you, since most I do not own and have not read, but an actual list in small print of titles. So no reviews most of the time, just newsy pieces with links.

And thank you, readers, for reading and occasionally clicking through one of those many associate links. I also keep going because I know you're out there, sharing an interest, creating, inspiring and learning along the way with me.