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Dracula Arrives in Whitby
On a recent holiday in North Yorkshire I found myself in Whitby. And what's not to love about Whitby: Captain Cook, Dracula, Whitby Museum with its Hand of Glory, renowned fish and chips and scampi, a...
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A Portrait of Otto
Those of you who follow the fortunes of Albert Wainwright's work in the markets may have already seen this portrait of his young friend Otto which was sold at Dreweatts at the end of march. The...
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Barry Wilkinson Illustrates A Boat and Bax by Roger Collinson
As regular readers will know I am a big fan of this style of pen and ink illustration seen in children's books in particular through the 1950s to the 1970s. I still haven't come up with a suitable...
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Dreams of Space
For many years now I have been following a blog called "Dreams of Space". It's a collection of "Non-fiction children's space flight stuff 1945-1975" which, as someone who appreciates a good collection,...
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John S Barrington at Auction
John S Barrington is a fascinating figure, a photographer, publisher, and artist, who has featured on Front Free Endpaper a number of times before in quite some detail. These images, along with...
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Edward Bawden Illustrates Andrew Lang
Andrew Lang is best remembered for his Fairy Books. Twelve books of fairy stories each distinguished by being given a colour in both title and binding, illustrated profusely and elaborately guilt...
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Lionel Birch by Robert J Kirkpatrick
Lionel Birch (christened as Jack Ernest Lionel Birch) was born in Chelsea on 11 April 1910. His father was John Somerville Birch (1861-1913), a highly-regarded diplomat in Egypt; his mother was Ethel...
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Harold Copping illustratates Quills by Walter C Rhoades
As we have recently had a guest post from the King of All Things School-Story on the blog I thought this seemed an appropriate follow on. I don't normally buy school story books myself but flicking...
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Vintage Swimwear - It's been a while...
It's been a while since I have bought anything new by way of vintage photos of guys in swimwear to add to my collection. However, this one caught my eye and as it has arrived in the middle of some very...
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Albert Wainwright and Theatre
Fans of Albert Wainwright, the early 20th century painter from Yorkshire will know that this blog often features his painting. It is slightly less well known however, what a passion he had for the...
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Short Lists
It has actually been a few weeks now since the release of my latest Short List. It seems amazing that it could be number 25! For those of you who don't know, these lists are irregular short catalogues...
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Ralph Chubb Ephemera
Had the opportunity to look at a collection of Ralph Chubb books the other day. Among all the amazing printing, calligraphy, mysticism and art work, what was it that made me stop and look? An order...
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Gleeson White and Kains-Jackson at Auction
If you have a lot of money and collect obscure (and otherwise) turn of the last century literature, you should probably look away now: unless you are the lucky new owner of this little beauty. This was...
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Geoffrey Whittam illustrates The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
It's always fun to see how different illustrators approach classic texts that have already been illustrated many times before. This edition of Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is illustrated by...
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Bernard Bowerman illustrates Jane's Country Year
There is something almost as satisfying about a 'through the year' book as there is in an alphabet book, a sense of rounded completion about the whole. The internet tells me that Jane's Country Year...
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Mr Anon and Mr Anonymous
I am mildly annoyed with myself that this post is more anonymous than perhaps it needed to be. I just found these fabulous images from a early 20th Century photo album in my "to blog" folder and I...
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Rockwell Kent illustrates Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself"
Rockwell Kent (1882-1971), hardly needs an introduction from me, as Wikipedia has it he was an "American painter, printmaker, illustrator, writer, sailor and adventurer", which seems appropriate for...
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Rescued a Young Victorian Chap
Well, the photograph itself is in fairly poor condition but I could hardly leave such a handsome chap in the shop to deteriorate further now, could I?
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Ralph Chubb: The Book of Rapha
Ralph Chubb's books were things which combined word, image and physicality in an extraordinary way. He wrote that, in his search for the perfect book "I always visualized a method which would combine...
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Clare Leighton illustrates Perkin the Pedlar by Eleanor Farjeon
Quite often a book is illustrated in both black and white and colour and I make a decision about whether I prefer the artists offering of one or the other and then only blog those images. Clare...
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Clare Leighton illustrates Perkin the Pedlar in colour...
As promised, these are the images from Perkin the Pedlar in colour. Each of these is a full page and the black with strong flat colour is remarkably effective.
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A Bio-Gem from the Biograph Studio
This was a a delightful and unusual find today. The Biograph Studio was quite influential in the beginning of cinema and as well as offering moving portraits from their studio in Regents Street in...
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Robin Jaques Illustrates The Hand of Apollo by Elizabeth Coatsworth
Robin Jacques is a big name little known. He was an illustrator for more than 100 books in the heart of the twentieth century and he ploughed his own course. While his contemporaries started covering...
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Claes Bäckström illustrates The Runaway by Harry Kullman
Sometimes is it the most modest books which can contain the most lovely things, be that the story or the illustrations. This is a hardback edition by Methuen of a novel for children by Harry Kullman,...
View ArticleAll Good Things...
Hi,As some of you are aware, in the past 12 months I have had to face some reasonably serious health issues - I'm fine now - but that kind of thing does make you take a good look at life and I've...
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