The Admiral's Caravan by Charles E. Carryl illustrated by Reginald B. Birch

Reginald Bathurst Birch (May 2, 1856 – June 17, 1943) was an English-American artist and illustrator. He was best known for his depiction of the titular hero of Frances Hodgson Burnett's 1886 novel Little Lord Fauntleroy, which started a craze in juvenile fashion. While his illustrated corpus has eclipsed his other work, he was also an accomplished painter of portraits and landscapes. (Wikipedia)

 His first great success was his illustration of Frances Hodgson Burnett's children's book Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886), whose young protagonist's long, curly hair and velvet and lace suit were widely imitated by mothers as a pattern of dress for their little boys. Birch's name was indelibly associated with Burnett's protagonist forever after, rather to the illustrator's irritation. During the period of his initial popularity he illustrated over forty books, many of which, along with his drawings, had initially seen publication in serial form. These included more of Burnett's children's books, notably Sara Crewe (1888).

Demand for Birch's work faded after 1914, and by the 1930s he was living in poverty. His career was revived in 1933 by his illustrations for Louis Untermeyer's The Last Pirate, and he went on to illustrate about twenty additional books before being retired by failing eyesight about 1941. Reginald Birch—His Book, a retrospective collection of works he illustrated by various authors, was published in 1939 by Harcourt, Brace and Company.

 

Reginald Bathurst Birch

 

 

Es kann wohl niemand bestreiten, dass die Geschichte den Betrachter oder den Leser an Lewis Carrols Alice in Wonderland erinnert. E.W.

The Story of the Crusades illustrated by Morris Meredith Williams

 

Williams was born in Cowbridge, Wales, the eldest child of Reverend M. P. Williams, at that time headmaster of Cowbridge Grammar School. The family moved in 1889 to Rotherfield Peppard near Henley-on-Thames when Reverend Williams became Rector there. Morris studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London.

He continued his studies in Paris, where he met his first wife, the noted sculptor Alice Meredith Williams. They married in 1906 and lived in Edinburgh where Morris worked part-time as an Art Master at Fettes College and as an artist and prolific illustrator of children's books of myth, folklore and history. He served as an officer in the Welsh Regiment and The Royal Engineers in the First World War, and during this time drew many sketches of trench life and battlefield destruction, some of which were worked up into paintings after the war and now hang in regimental museums and in the National Army Museum. In 2017 a selection of his wartime work was published along with the couple's wartime correspondence.

After the war, he and Alice worked together on many war memorials. Morris designed the metal frieze of naval and military figures, modelled by Alice, for the shrine of the Scottish National War Memorial at Edinburgh Castle.

In 1929, the couple relocated to Devon, living in and around North Tawton. Alice died in 1934 and Williams remarried in 1936, remaining in Devon for the rest of his life and ending his days in Romansleigh in North Devon.

Williams worked in landscape and genre painting, stained glass, engraving and illustration. He exhibited at the Royal Academy in London and at the Royal Scottish Academy. Several of his works are held by museums and galleries in Liverpool and by National Galleries of Scotland. (WIKIPEDIA)