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| The True Sweetheart: “The third time, she wore the star-dress which sparkled at every step.” by Arthur Rackham |
At intervals from 1900 onwards Rackham worked on the original drawings, partially or entirely redrawing some of them in colour, adding new ones in colour and in black-and-white, and generally overhauling them as a set, the final and best-known edition, of 1909, contained forty coloured illustrations and fifty-five line drawings. Rackham wrote to Frank Redway on 28th May 1914: ‘In many ways I have more affection for the Grimm drawings than for other sets. (I think it is partly one’s childhood affection for the stories.) It was the first book I did that began to bring success (the little, earlier edition, that is)….”
In this letter Rackham touches on one important reason for his triumph as an illustrator of the classics – his very thorough knowledge of the texts. Though he was completely faithful to his authors, there was nothing of slavish pedantry in his interpretations; the personal and imaginative always transcended the literal. A comparison between the first and the last editions of his Grimm emphasizes the remarkable progress that Rackham made in a decade; yet the earlier drawings that he allowed to stand can hold their own with the later ones.
A reviewer of the enlarged book in the Westminster Gazette of 1909 enlisted the help of two small boys to make another point that told strikingly in Rackham’s favour: ‘When it came to the contemplation of Mr Rackham’s drawings there was never a second’s hesitation. They understood them at once, and entirely.’"
To be continued
(Excerpts from "Arthur Rackham: His Life and Work by Derek Hudson.")
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