GIFT-BOOKS.
SOME ILLUSTRATED VOLUMES.* THE reproduction in colour of old and new pictures has set on edge the teeth of most artists at one time or another.
• (1) The Pickwick Papers. By Charles Dickens. IlluArated by Frank Reynolds, B.I. London : Hodder and Stoughton. [15s. net.]—(2) The Arabian Nights. With Illustrations by Rend Bull. Loudon Constable and Co. [10s. Gd. net.] —(3) .Esop's Fables. Illustrated by C. Folkard. London : A. and C. Black. [6s.]—(4) A Song of the Engluh. By Rudyard Kipling. Illustrated by
Yet its popularity is increasingly manifest, and can in some fashion be secured. If any purchasers of chromo-lithographs or the results of the three-colour process are so ignorant of " colour " as to think that they have anything as good as a fine original work it is not fair for artists or critics to blame the processes for their folly. It has been by a fine struggle—of science certainly rather than of art—that the present standard has been reached. But the modern artists have helped because they have studied the matter, and they now aid the printer by se preparing their pictures as to meet the process, choosing their colour with knowledge of what can be reproduced with more success and what with less. To the purist this may be a prostitu- tion of art, but still the demand will be supplied, and all concerned may do their beat to bring about results which can have beauty up to a certain limit, and do afford very great interest and pleasure. The efforts of modern artists to fall in with the inventors are evident when we compare the relative success achieved in presenting their work and in reproducing the pictures of old masters, for the two things are totally different in effect. Amid this new wealth created for us by science there is another point which touches us when we see new illustrated editions of books we have loved. The old black-and-white illustrators had smaller opportunities, yet by merit and by association they have found a place in our hearts from which they cannot painlessly be ousted. There is a pang when we find the publishers turning out the old friends, and prejudice inclines us to rate the novelties as gaudy pretentiousness : it accumulates force when a copyright expires and a group of new illustrated editions is flung at us. But the fact remains that there is new wealth— for the simple reader with an untrained eye and devoid of the sense of colour.
To turn from these generalities to particular examples, Mr. Pickwick appears in anew guise this winter. Some of Mr. Reynolds's figures of Dickens's characters have been already obtainable, we think, before the publication of this book with twenty-five of his coloured plates. One of the best is the group of the three friends awaiting their immortal leader at the beginning of the journey. There is great vivacity and characterization in the faces. Later on in the story Bob Sawyer and Ben Allen seem to be cleaner and better set-up young men than Dickens would have recognized. Three of the plates, "On the Rochester Coach," "A Pleasant Day" (the shooting party), and the scene on the ice are pleasant enough as pictures, but the figures are small and almost unrecognizable except for Mr. Pickwick in the wheelbarrow. The edition does honour to Dickens and to Sam's beloved guv'nor, and for that reason, as well as for its own merits, we welcome it. Lees satisfactory is the appearance of some stories from the Arabian Nights, about five-and-twenty favourites in all, including Sinbad, Ali Baba, and Aladdin : the publishers do not tell us how they were selected. They are illustrated by twenty-five colour plates and numerous black-and-white drawings scattered through the printed pages, the work of Rene Bull. Black-and-white sketches have always been his strong point, and he is successful and amusing here, but the coloured pictures are too ambitious for him. They are crowded with glaring detail without much attention to perspective. Some of them have a grotesque character, after Mr. Arthur Rackham's manner, but without his sense of mystery. Without any such sense no illustrations of the Arabian Nights can be quite successful. Mr. Rackham's influence is visible again in Mr. Folkard's twelve illustrations of some two hundred of .sop's Fables. These are presumably edited by Mr. Gordon Home, who contributes a short Intro- duction upon their history. Children will find the animals very fanny, and presumably that is the purpose. For our- selves we never imagined lEsop's animals in comic clothes. These are not even consistently dressed, for while the artist wisely refrains from trying to add human clothes to the tortoise's shell, he puts the hare into breeches. Imagine (where the "Lion in Love" is letting his teeth be drawn) how La Fontaine would have shuddered at the thought of the amorous king of beasts in coat and trousers and carrying a, large bouquet ! Modern English children might not appreciate W. Heath Robinson. London : Hodder and Stoughton. Mo. net.]—(5) All the Tales from Shakespeare. By Charles and Mary Lamb and IL 8. Morris. With Plates in Colour. Two vole. London: W. Heinemann. [21s. net.]—(6) Shakespeare's Stories of the English Kings. Retold by Thomas Carter, D.D. Illustrated by 0. D. Hammond, S.I. London: liarrup and Co. [5a. net.] the old line-engravings of the fine editions of La Fontaine, but the animals of these old fables were not merely comic. For these reasons we prefer Mr. Folkard's candid village scene in which the man and his son are carrying their ass. Mr. Rudyard Kipling's poem, A Song of the English, from his Seven Seas, with Mr. Heath Robinson's illustrations, has appeared before, but is now reissued in a handy and cheaper form.
Two other illustrated publications demand some note of their letterpress as well as of their plates. " Charles and Mary Lamb and H. S. Morris " is a triple authorship which makes one rub one's eyes. Auction Bridge on the "clean hearth" of Sarah Battle would seem about as comprehensible as a third name in the collaboration of Charles and Mary. The explanation is that the first volume of this work is a well-printed edition of the Lambs' Tales : the second volume consists of the remaining plays as told by Mr. Morris, though the three names appear together on the title-page of each volume. Were it not for the inevitable comparison, we should probably say that Mr. Morris has acquitted himself very creditably. This is especially so when we remember that he has set himself the task of telling the stories of those plays which are the least suitable for the purpose. The Lambs knew quite well what they were about when they preferred others to the historical plays. And such a drama as Troilus and Cressida is obviously not good material for the purpose which the Lambs had in mind, and will not be, even though the tellers were Thomas Bowdler and H. S. Morris instead of "Charles and Mary Lamb and H. S. Morris." It is only fair to Mr. Morris to say that in his own volume be has a short preface in which he disclaims any profane or presumptuous intention. The illustrations of the two volumes certainly form an interesting gallery, though to them apply the remarks we made above upon reproductions in colour of pictures not made for the purpose. There is the Eton picture of Henry VI. ; the old National Gallery favourites by Mediae and Mulready, Landseer and Leslie; Mr. Sargent's portrait of Miss Ellen Terry ; several from the Shakespeare Memorial at Stratford- on-Avon by Smirke, Stothard, and others, and some old theatrical pictures, well-known by engravings, such as Kemble in the characters of Coriolanus and Hamlet, Kean as Richard III., and Bunbury's Falstaff scenes. It is odd that no mention is made of the sources from which any of them are taken except those from Stratford and Sir E. Poynter's "Ides of March " from the Manchester Art Gallery. Lastly, we have the stories of eight of Shakespeare's plays, in which appear Kings of England, told by Dr. Carter. He mentions in his preface Shakespeare's idea of kingship, but that is rather a tenuous thread by which to connect such diverse plays as Cymbeline and Henry VIII. He does not pretend to follow the Lambs, but gives simple historical explanations, from which he passes easily into the action. He does not refrain from quoting many of the best-known passages at length. The sixteen illustrations by Miss G. D. Hammond are very prettily drawn and coloured. A clean-shaven Falstaff is a novelty, and we do not care for her idea of Henry VI. ; but the figure of the Bastard Faulconbridge is good, the siege of Harfleur full of life, and all give a pleasing effect in one way or another.
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