Honor Appleton
1879-1951 British
This English illustrator entered fully into the imaginative world of childhood. So forceful is her imagination that the viewer is compelled to see dolls and toys as the living beings the child plays with. She draws so finely, and her coloring is so exquisite, that we hold our breaths when looking at her pictures lest they evaporate. It is remarkable that they survived color separation and printing.

Appleton identifies with children at play as fully as any illustrator. One imagines her in her fifties on the floor with her teddy bears and dolls. Hers are truly reports from childhood. The Josephine books are her largest achievement, but every book she illustrated is marked with very feminine sensibility and rare skill.

Selected Bibliography of books illustrated by Honor Appleton:

The Bad Mrs. Ginger, 1902.
Songs of Innocence, 1910.
Our Nursery Rhyme Book, 1912.
How I Tamed My Wild Squirrels, 1914.
Josephine and Her Dolls, 1916.
Josephine's Happy Family, 1916.
Josephine is Busy, 1918.
Josephine's Birthday, 1919.
Fairy Tales, 1919.
Josephine, John and the Puppy, 1920.
Babies Three, 1921.
Me and My Pussies, 1924.
Josephine Keeps School, 1925.
Josephine Goes Shopping, 1926.
A Treasury of Verse for School and Home, 1926.
Josephine's Christmas Party, 1927.
Josephine Keeps House, 1931.
The Book of Animal Tales, 1932.
Josephine's Pantomime, 1939.
Josephine Goes Travelling, 1940.

Johnny Gruelle (John Barton Gruelle)
1880-1938 American
Johnny Gruelle was one of those rare beings who write as well as they illustrate. He is best known for Raggedy Anne and Andy and their toy friends who cavort in the nursery while their human owners are elsewhere. They first appeared in 1923 and their adventures continued even after Gruelle's death (utilizing unpublished manuscripts.) His genius, however, reached beyond those marvelous creations, and many of his other books are equally charming and inventive. His draughtsmanship is equal to his imagination. He is one of the most underrated children's book creators. Librarians are largely to blame for his neglect for they have had, historically, a prejudice against children's books that appeared in series. Frank Baum and his Oz books were similarly discounted, and until recently neither Raggedy Ann and Andy books or Oz books were even stocked by many public libraries.

Selected Bibliography of books written and illustrated by Johnny Gruelle:

Mr. Twee Deedle, 1913.
Mr. Twee Deedle's Further Adventures, 1914.
The Travels of Timmy Toodles, 1916.
My Very Own Fairy Stories, 1917.
The Funny Little Book, 1918.
Raggedy Ann Stories, 1918.
Little Sunny Stories, 1919.
Friendly Fairies, 1919.
Raggedy Andy Stories: Introducing the Little Rag Brother of Raggedy Ann, 1920.
The Little Brown Bear, 1920.
Orphan Annie Story Book, 1921.
Eddie Elephant, 1921.
Johnny Mouse and the Wishing Stock, 1922.
The Magical Land of Noom, 1922.
Raggedy Ann and Andy and the Camel with the Wrinkled Knees, 1924.
Raggedy Ann's Wishing Pebble, 1925.
Raggedy Ann's Alphabet Book, 1925.
The Paper Dragon: A Raggedy Ann Adventure, 1926.
Raggedy Ann's Alphabet Book, 1925.
The Paper Dragon: A Raggedy Ann Adventure, 1926.
Beloved Belindy, 1926.
Wooden Willie, 1927.
Raggedy Ann's Magical Wishes, 1928.
Raggedy Andy's Number Book, n.d.
Marcella Stories, 1929.
The Cheery Scarecrow, 1929.
Raggedy Ann in the Deep Deep Woods, 1930.
Raggedy Ann in Cookie Land, 1931.
Raggedy Ann's Lucky Pennies, 1932.
Raggedy Ann and the Left-Handed Safety Pin, 1935.
Raggedy Ann in the Golden Meadow, 1935.

Ida Rentoul Outhwaite
1888-1960 Australian
This Australian illustrator built her career entirely on fairies. Her many books (mostly written by her sister Annie) feature fairies, which she saw as lovely girls, cavorting elegantly with small animals or playing in romantic settings. Her composition is excellent, her imagination fertile, her scenography memorable. Her black and white drawings have a special grace. Ida Rentoul Outhwaite said that with the dropping of the first atomic bombs fairies fled this world. Hopefully they have returned, and are again as young and beautiful as those she recorded.

Selected Bibliography of books illustrated by Ida Rentoul Outhwaite:

Mollie's Bunyip, 1904.
Millie's Staircase, 1906.
Gum Tree Brownie and Other Faerie Folk of the Never Never, 1907.
The Story of the Pantomime Humpty Dumpty, 1907.
Peter Pan: The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, 1908.
Bush Songs of Australia For Young and Old, 1910.
Before the Lamps are Lit, 1911.
Elves and Fairies, 1916.
Ackman's Book for Children, 1918.
The Guinea-pig That Wanted a Tail, 1918.
The Naughty Baby Monkey, 1918.
Fuzzy, Wuzzy and Buzzy, 1918.
The Quarrel of the Baby Lions, 1918.
Teddy Bear's Birthday Party, 1918.
Peter's Peach, 1918.
The Enchanted Forest, 1921.
The Little Green Road To Fairyland, 1922.
The Little Fairy Sister, 1921.
Fairyland of Ida Rentoul Outhwaite, 1926.
Blossom: A Fairy Story, 1926.
Bunny & Brownie: The Adventures of George and Wiggle, 1930.
A Bunch of Wild Flowers, 1933.

Jessie Willcox Smith
1863-1935 American

Autobiographical Statement by Jessie Willcox Smith:

It was quite by accident, when I was about seventeen years old, that I discovered I had an ability or talent for drawing. I was studying to be a kindergarten teacher. Children had always attracted and interested me and I naturally turned to them when selecting my life's work-but fate had other plans!

A young friend of my own age who was studying art had been asked by a friend of hers, a teacher in a boys' school, if she would give him some lessons in drawing. He wanted to be able to demonstrate talks to his boys on the blackboard. She spoke to her mother about it (which shows we were not living in this day and generation) and her mother consented, but suggested she make me join the class-"just for propriety's sake."

We had our first lesson that evening and were given to draw-of all things for beginners-a student lamp that stood on the table before us. I had literally never drawn an object from life before, but was perfectly unconcerned, as success or failure meant nothing, and I fully looked for failure. Much to my surprise and the young man's chagrin, my student lamp was a brilliant success-his might have passed for one in an modernistic exhibition of today, but certainly not back in the "gay nineties." That lamp was the turning point in my life, and has shed its light before me ever since. I feel profoundly grateful to it still.

Kindergarten was uphill work, but from the moment that I began studying in the Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, which I did the following year, I have never had one moment that I should call "uphill." Difficult, exacting and constant? Yes. But always thrilling and absorbing, with something ahead that one was sure one could do better.

My interest and love of children and my close observation of them during my year in kindergarten stood me in good stead. When I had finished my early training, I began to make drawings for St. Nicholas and other children's magazines and then had the good fortune to be able to study under Howard Pyle. I owe a great debt to him. He made many things clear and through him I illustrated my first book and many others.

Busy years have passed since then, with book and magazine illustrations, and now, except for the covers of Good Housekeeping, my work is entirely portrait painting of children.

Selected Bibliography of books illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith:

Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie, 1897.
Rhymes of Real Children, 1903.
In The Closed Room, 1904.
A Child's Garden of Verses, 1905.
The Bed Time Book, 1907.
Dream Blocks, 1908.
The Seven Ages of Childhood, 1909.
A Child's Book of Old Verses, 1910.
The Five Senses, 1911.
The Now-A-Days Fairy Book 1911.
A Child's Book of Stories, 1911.
Dickens' Children, Ten Children by Jessie Willcox Smith, 1912.
'Twas the Night Before Christmas, 1912.
The Everyday Fairy Book, 1915.
Little Women, 1915.
The Little Mother Goose, 1915.
The Water Babies, 1916.
The Way to Wonderful, 1917.
At the Back of the North Wind, 1920.
The Princess and the Goblin, 1921.
A Child's Book of Modern Stories, 1920.
A Little Child's Book of Stories, 1922.
A Very Little Child's Book of Stories, 1923.
Boys and Girls of Bookland, 1923.
A Child's Prayer, 1925.
A Child's Book of Country Stories, 1925.

Margaret W. Tarrant
1888-1959 British

Autobiographical Statement by Margaret Tarrant:

I was born in a suburb of London, near the end of Queen Victoria's reign, and am the "only child" of my parents. My father, Percy Tarrant, is an artist, and of course from him I have derived my interest in art, and a great deal of help all through my life.

I was educated at Clapham High School and had my first art training in the Art Department of that school, passed on to the Clapham School of Art. Since then I have studied intermittently at Heatherly's, in London, and at Guildford.

I began drawing at a very early age and have never lost my love of it nor my great interest in all artistic work. At the age of eighteen I began to work for publishers of Christmas cards, and then to do book illustrations, illustrating Kingsley's Water Babies and Browning's Pied Piper of Hamelin for Messrs. J.M. Dent & Son. From that time until about ten years ago I worked for various publishers, and from then until now I have worked chiefly for the Medici Society, often collaborating with Mrs. St. John Webb, whose recent death I very greatly regret.

I have exhibited at the Royal Academy, and also at the Birmingham and Liverpool and Bristol Art Galleries.

My love of nature has led me to the kind of work I now do-I want to lead people's thoughts from nature's wonder to nature's Creator. I am not an Anglo-Catholic, nor even a high-church person, though many people think I am, because I paint saints and angels.

I am anxious to develop pencil work as a medium for illustrating, and also I want to travel and paint landscapes.

-From Contemporary Illustrators of Children's Books, 1930.

Selected Bibliography of books illustrated by Margaret Tarrant:
Lucy Mary or the Cobweb Cloak, n.d.
The Water-Babies, 1908.
Fairy Stories from Hans Christian Andersen, 1910.
Nursery Rhymes, 1914.
In Wheelabout and Cockalone, 1918.
Verses for Children, 1918.
Eliz'beth, Phil and Me, 1919
The Tookey and Alice Mary Tales, 1919.
Zoo Days, 1919.
The Book of Games, 1920.
The Forest Fairies, 1925.
The House Fairies, 1925.
The Insect Fairies, 1925.
The Pond Fairies, 1925.
The Sea Shore Fairies, 1925.
The Wild-Fruit Fairies, 1925.
The Magic Lamplighter, 1926.
The Orchard Fairies, 1928.
Rhymes of Old Times, 1925.
The Twilight Fairies, 1928.
Mother Goose: Nursery Rhymes, 1929.
Fairy Tales, 1930.
Our Animal Friends, 1930.
Joan in Flowerland, 1935.
The Margaret Tarrant Nursery Rhyme Book, 1944.
The Margaret Tarrant Story Book, 1947.