Coloring Book Week: Rackham's Fairy Tale Coloring Book

Rackham's Fairy Tale Coloring Book (Dover Classic Stories Coloring Book) is not a new coloring book and predates--like many Dover coloring books--the current art therapy/coloring book trend. I love Arthur Rackham's illustrations and this book offers black and white renderings of his color paintings for you to color yourself. The other bonus is that this is priced much lower than most of the other coloring books on the market right now.

For example, here is an original Rackham:

And here is the coloring book version:

The book also offers full text of the fairy tales, so essentially you get to read the stories, see the illustrations and then color them yourself.

Book description:

Preserving all of the characteristic elegance and charm of Rackham's original drawings and watercolors, 30 renderings capture scenes from "Hansel and Gretel," "King Thrushbear," "Doctor Know-All," "Snow White," "Rapunzel," "Sleeping Beauty," and more. The coloring book also includes story adaptations of 17 Grimm fairy tales that retain the folk flavor of the originals.

Here are some more sample pages from the book.

Arthur Rackham's Book of Pictures

Arthur Rackham's Book of Pictures (Dover Fine Art, History of Art) by Arthur Rackham was released in December and kept slipping down my to do list for the blog here. This is a Dover reprint of a book originally published in 1913. The book is essentially a collection of Arthur Rackham's orphan works, ranging from fairy tale illustrations to magazine commissions. It is eclectic and fun since the range is wider than the usual collection of Rackham's works. This reprint includes Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch's introduction.

The Frog Prince

The collection has some of my favorite Rackham illustrations. Many of these have not appeared in previous Dover collections of Rackham's work.

Jack and the Beanstalk

Once Upon a Time

Book description from Dover:

This wonderful survey of the famed artist's early work features 44 color plates in addition to several black-and-white vignettes and spot illustrations. Most of the images depict fantastic dwarfs, giants, elves, and fairies as well as naturalistic illustrations far removed from the fairy world. An elegant offering for all Rackham fans, this volume includes many long-unavailable pieces.

Santa Claus

There is one review on the Amazon page for this book but it is for another edition. This edition, while it uses the standard Dover sizing and image quality is different from that described in the review.

Arthur Rackham 2012 Calendar

Rackham's Fairy Tales 2012 Wall Calendar is one of my top picks for a 2012 calendar. This is also a great way to get small prints of Rackham's work. If you don't write on the calendar, these also resell well once out of print for that very reason. The prices on older ones are quite fascinating although I am not tempted to sell my own copies.

Here's an image of the back so you can see all 12 images. If my memory serves me well, some of these come from Arthur Rackham's Book of Pictures which is being rereleased next month by Dover, but I will give that book its own post soon.

Video Tribute to Arthur Rackham by joshje777

Here is our Sunday morning video of a Tribute to Arthur Rackham, courtesy of joshje777. Enjoy! Check back next Sunday for the next in the series.

English Fairy Tales illustrated by Arthur Rackham

English Fairy Tales by Flora Annie Steel and illustrated by Arthur Rackham is another recent release in Dover's Calla Editions line. This, too, is a personal favorite. Just as Dulac is one of my favorite illustrators of French tales, along with Gustave Dore, I consider Rackham the best illustrator of English fairy tales. Nevermind that he is one of the best and most influential illustrators ever, but I am drawn especially to his English tales. This is a beautiful edition of Rackham's books, the only edition that trumps it is the original which sells usually for hundreds if not thousands of dollars.

Book description:

This gorgeous hardcover edition is profusely illustrated with some of Rackham's most accomplished black-and-white work, including many silhouettes —16 full-page color plates are included as well. Features over 40 beloved tales, including "Tattercoats," "Jack the Giant Killer," and "Jack and the Beanstalk." New typography and design elements make this a must-have for all fans of Rackham's art.

Arthur Rackham: A Life with Illustration

Arthur Rackham: A Life with Illustration is a new release with a scheduled official release date of April 1, but my copy arrived on Friday so it is already available. Amazon, for some reason, has the book at 42% off right now and I expect the price to bump back up again any minute. (Ah, the vagaries of Amazon pricing is a constant mystery to me.) So I wanted to post it now in case any of you want to benefit from the great price.

Book description from the publisher:

The definitive and sumptuous biography of the one of the world's most collectible illustrators contains a richly detailed account of his life along with beautifully enchanting pictures

Examining the work of the illustrator Arthur Rackham, this monograph traces his achievements throughout his illustrious career. Rackham's illustrations for such works as Alice in Wonderland, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, and Rip Van Winkle have attained the classic status of the writings themselves—and indeed, in some cases, they have become synonymous with them. His works were also included in numerous exhibitions in his lifetime, including one at the Louvre in Paris in 1914. Rackham himself, however, has previously remained a shadowy figure. As well as featuring exquisite illustrations and sketches, extracts from Rackham's correspondence and insightful commentary shed new light on this much-collected illustrator.

This is a beautiful book. It is not a brand new book, it was originally published in 1990 but was out-of-print and became an expensive used book. This new edition is a great way for the author to earn the money he has earned by offering such an excellent overview of Rackham's life and work. And this edition is currently priced much lower than used copies of the older edition.

Hands down, this edition has some of the best quality reproductions of Rackham's work since the original publications of Rackham's work, perhaps even better than some of those. They certainly aren't yellowed with age! They are crisp, not muddy, and even more stunning as a result. A bonus is that the "usual suspects" are not as common here but the book offers many of the lesser distributed, seldom reproduced illustrations, in other words, ones you haven't seen everywhere before. If you own as much Rackham as I do, this book is still a treasure. If you own none or a little, this is an excellent way to start.

Hamilton also shares compelling insights into Rackham's life and work. For being so well recognized in his art, Rackham's life wasn't as well understood until this book was originally published. There's also interesting rather unusual appendices such as "The Business of Illustration and How Rackham Made It Pay" and "Arthur Rackham's Pattern of Earnings." Fascinating stuff. He was more than a genius at art, he was a successful businessman.

Now obviously the book is not about fairy tales as much as illustration and Rackham's personal life but Rackham's contribution to fairy tale illustration as well as his influence on future illustrators in the genre is immeasurable. He's almost a cliche but not really since he is so brilliant. I had to use his work for the blog's design so if you visit the blog site proper, instead of through feeds or Facebook, you see his "Old Woman in the Wood" everyday. I'm thrilled with the book and glad I finally own a copy.

Calla Edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales illustrated by Arthur Rackham

Grimm's Fairy Tales illustrated by Arthur Rackham is a new release from Calla Editions (part of Dover). This is a reproduction of the original 1909 release by Rackham and a great, inexpensive way to own a beautiful collection of Rackham's work with the tales.  It has an October release date but is already shipping from Amazon.  Dover rarely has firm pub dates and they are usually bumped later than earlier, so I am happy this one is earlier.

I haven't seen this edition in person yet--I own a few Rackham books and still want this one, for one it will smell new--but I have some of the Calla releases from last year and they are all satisfying.  Yes, I have had the privilege of seeing and handling many of the first editions of these volumes.  They are not up to that standard but they are better than most of the other reproductions I have seen produced during the decades since, so you can either spend thousands on a first edition or settle for one of these.  And so many of those first editions are missing illustration plates, too.  That always makes me sad. 

And, really, Arthur Rackham is rather the Beatles of illustrators--his influence is visible in the work of so many illustrators a century later. 

And here's some of the other Calla Editions that may interest the readers here:

Stories from Hans Christian Andersen (Calla Editions) illustrated by Edmund Dulac

East of the Sun and West of the Moon: Old Tales from the North (Calla Editions)illustrated by Kay Nielsen

The Arabian Nights illustrated by Rene Bull

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

The Jungle Book (Calla Editions)

 

Edited to make corrections and additions based on Jeff's comments, HAH. Thanks, Jeff!

New Edition of Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti

Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti is a new release from Dover Books.  Of course, this is an old text, easily found on the internet to read, but the book does what Dover does best, offers reproductions of Arthur Rackham's illustrations for the story.

Book description from the publisher:

This lovely hardcover gift edition of Christina Rossetti's most famous poem will enchant readers of all ages. A captivating adventure into a land of fantasy for children and a sensual allegory of temptation, sacrifice, and salvation for adults, it features 4 color and 20 black-and-white images by Arthur Rackham as well as a reproduction of a rare Rackham watercolor.

So, if you love Rackham and Goblin Market, this is the book for you.  You can read more about Goblin Market itself on Wikipedia, of course, where links to the story are also available.

Diamonds and Toads Week: Sand Sculptures

The images in this post were taken by mleigh1005 at Webshots at Sand World 2005 in Travemuende. I love this image of the kind sister, whether it be from Mother Holle as labeled or more likely Diamonds and Toads since the one coin is perched rather uncomfortably in her mouth and the rest appear to have fallen from that source. Still it was made in Germany and the text is in German so I won't argue with Mother Holle either!

Either way, I was tickled with this one since it is rare to find art and illustration of any variants of the tale in comparison with others. Especially frustrating considering just how many variants there are.

The image also once again reiterates just how much the gift of gold and diamonds falling from your mouth is truly a double-edged sword, a curse more than blessing. A few authors have played with this theme including Heather Tomlinson in her new novel and Michael Cadnum in his short story "Toad Rich" and Nalo Hopkinson in "Precious." See the Modern Interpretations of Diamonds and Toads for more information.

Finally, this wasn't the only fairy tale sand sculpture to be seen either, so I'm adding more below. I won't label these, but let you play the old "identify the fairy tale game" yourself. You can click through to see the label and the images in much larger size. Also, I am only including my favorites. There are several more in the online album to see, 35 in total.