A Wonder-Book, 1929

 

My mother-in-law found this book about three years ago at a flea market. Florida or New Jersey? I'm not sure anymore.  She has good instincts about what I like, and this was no exception. 

The surprise when I opened the book:

An early work of illustration by Fern Bisel Peat! Of course, Peat was not a contemporary of Nathaniel Hawthorne; this is a reprint of his work from 1851, in which he re-imagined Greek myths for children. The Saalfield Publishing Company reissued his work with Peat's lovely illustrations in 1929. 

"Children possess an unestimated sensibility to whatever is deep or high, in imagination or feeling, so long as it is simple, likewise. It is only the artificial and the complex that bewilder them." -- Nathaniel Hawthorne, Lenox, July 15, 1851.

from The Miraculous Pitcher

from The Three Golden Apples

from The Golden Touch

from The Gorgon's Head

from The Paradise of Children

Freedom to Read! by Maurice Sendak, 1991

Artwork drawn by Sendak especially for the 1991 convention of the American Booksellers Association, and reproduced on this postcard. Book titles cited in this dreamscape: everything from Honey Bunch to Lady Chatterley's Lover.

Arthur Rackham, 1909

Dover has a new series of  postcards based on the illustrations of Arthur Rackham. Click here to read more about Rackham and his art.