Anbolyn@Gudrun’s Tights has joined in a children’s literature challenge which you can read about here. Really this challenge is right up my street as I love children’s classics, but then again I promised myself that I wouldn’t join in any challenges this year – so I’m not doing it, but I will lurk around the periphery of it, just to see if there are any books which I should have read but haven’t.
Anyway, I had been planning to start a ‘Books from my bookshelves’ series of posts, a sort of – now and again thing, just whenever the urge strikes me – or as we used to say in Scotland – ‘when it comes up my back’ meaning just when I feel like it. Don’t ask me the origins of that strange Scottish phrase!
So, on that note I thought I would share with you one of my lovely Folio books. It’s Perrault’s Fairy Tales Illustrated by Edmund Dulac.
The book contains:
The Sleeping Beauty
Little Red Riding Hood
Blue Beard
Puss in Boots
The Fairy
Cinderella
Riquet-with-the-Tuft
Hop-o’-my Thumb
Beauty and the Beast
The Dulac illustrations are beautiful, as indeed is the whole book. This illustration is captioned AND THERE IN A ROW, HUNG THE BODIES OF SEVEN DEAD WOMEN. Well, fairy tales are all about warning youngsters of the dangerous situations that they might find themselves in if they aren’t careful! If you want to see more of Edmund Dulac’s work have a look here.
You can download Charles Perrault’s Fairy Tales here.
Gosh, Katrina, you’ve made my day! I’ve always loved illustrations in children’s fiction – especially Arthur Rackham. But believe it or not I had never heard of Edmund Dulac! I’ve spent the last two hours browsing many of his illustrations and I am completely hooked. I love the one you included in your blog and also the illustration for The Princess and the Pea, but there are so many to admire. I can see that when I’m haunting second hand bookshops in the future I’ll also be looking for a copy of Perrault’s Fairy Tales.
Linda,
I’m sitting very close to about a dozen framed Arthur Rackham prints of Peter Pan. I love his illustrations. I saw that Princess and the Pea one with all the mattresses, lovely. I must admit that when my boys were wee I had a great time buying books for them (me), there are so many great illustrators around. A more modern one that I like is P J Lynch, especially his Melisande, you can see some of his work here.
You’re right, Katrina, the illustrations for Melisande are beautiful. One of the things I missed when I retired was finding and buying books for the class library. Ah, so many hours browsing…. However, one of the things I don’t miss are all the germs that were breathed and sneezed over me! I hope you and Jack are recovering!
Linda,
I forgot that you would have come into contact with lots of books as a teacher. I’m really looking forward to Jack retiring, you would think that you would build up immunity to all the bugs but I suppose they keep mutating. I’m better and Jack must be feeling a bit better as he is tackling the second year reports – deep joy!