Warwick Goble – The Fairy Book

The Fairy Book, illustrated by Warwick Goble

Being contemporary of more famous Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac, he is easily overlooked. While illustrator Warwick Goble (1862-1943) probably didn’t contribute to the history of books for children, we still to give him some credit. He made a lot of quality illustrations for many magazines, he illustrated works of classics as Charles Kingsley, Mary Louise Molesworth and Robert Louis Stevenson and he found his own niche in fantasy art in oriental style.

But for today we will check his work for The Fairy Book, published by MacMillan in 1913.

As we can already presume from the title, we are dealing with a collection of popular fairy tales with all the big names and some which are today known only to greatest fans of this genre.

Warwick Goble produced 32 color plates for this particular book and they all shown his delicate style and sense for vivid colors which evolved even further in next projects.

It is easy to recognize scene from Little Red Riding Hood. Different artists focused on different scenes and made different points. More pictures from this story are available here.

It take few moments more to name this illustration. It is from The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood (this title is used in Perrault’s variation, but in the book we can read Grimms’ with some additional decoration). We covered pictures from the fairy tale about the Sleeping Beauty pretty well too. You can check them right here.

Hop-o’-My-Tumb is less known variation of Hansel and Gretel. Plot is pretty much the same.

Among hundreds of variations I have already seen, this is first Cinderella one with red hair.

I have to admit Adventures of John Dietrich is completely new to me.

Another famous scene, grand finale from Beauty and the Beast.

Classical but almost forgotten fairy tale about three sisters with different numbers of eyes: Little One Eye.

Jack the Giant-Killer is more known in Great Britain than in continental part of the Europe.

Tom Thumb is a story about a really really little boy.

Rumpelstilzchen is today more known as Rumpelstiltskin or The Miller’s Daughter.

The story titled Fortunatus is a story about the very fortunate man.

Riquet with the Tuft is dealing with eternal problem: a man has to decide between beautiful but dumb and ugly but smart ladies.

House Island is an old fairy tale from Norway.

Snow White and Rose Red are sisters who had a problem with a dwarf but they also have an interesting friend: a bear.

Jack and the Bean-Stalk is by far the most popular fairy tale about Jack.

Graciosa and Percinet is a fairy tale about the love between a princess and a page. It is written by Madame d’Aulnoy.

The Iron Stove is actually a cursed prince and one of less known fairy tales by brothers Grimm.

The Invisible Prince is – what else – about prince who falls in love with a beautiful princess.

The Woodcutter’s Daughter is telling how poor woodcutter rescued the life of his master and what happened after that.

Brother and Sister have to deal with the witch. He is enchanted into a roe and she tries to protect him…

Puss in Boots educates us about the importance of proper dressing and lying. We have already covered many other illustrators of the fairy tale about the Puss in the Boots.

The Fair One with Golden Locks is an old classic about a princess, a prince and a dragon. There are actually more dragons.

The Butterfly is less known fairy tale about fairies.

The Frog Prince is all about the importance of the given word.

The White Cat is another fairy tale about enchanted princess waiting to transform in human form with a help of the right person. Written by Madame d’Aulnoy.

Prince Cherry is another surprise for me. I never heard of it before this book. It starts with a white rabbit seeking for protection.

Little Snowdrop is of course something completely different although it is more known today as The Snow White and Seven Dwarfs.

The Blue Bird is another fairy tale by Madame d’Aulnoy. It tells us a story about enchanted prince, fairies and a lot of love.

The Yellow Dwarf is signed by d’Aulnoy too. It tells us a story about a mother who promised a hand of her spoiled daughter to a dwarf. Then thing start to complicate… Yes, there is even a mermaid involved!

The Six Swans are actually enchanted brothers of the princess who has to help them to return in their original form.

The Hind of the Forest is one of many fairy tales telling the story about a queen who has everything but a child…

O.K., this is all for now. These beautiful illustrations by Warwick Goble were published in the book titled The Fairy Book and are in public domain. Fairy tales were rewritten by Dinah Craik (1826-1887), more known as Miss Mulock with quite impressive bibliography. I am sure we’ll meet her again.

I hope you enjoyed in this presentation of The Fairy Book. Don’t forget to tell your friends:)