Very quick read, and I definitely prefer Rackham's work in the context it was painted/drawn for. Still quite lovely. ( )

86 colour illustrations doesn't seem like enough to cover the broad range of Arthur Rackham's artistic career, but Menges has chosen carefully so that Rackham's major works are represented. There are examples from his series of Norse myths, his work with Shakespeare, some from his books for younger children like Mother Goose, and some of his most popular publications like Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. I really enjoyed that there was no dominant work among the selections, as each book was represented by only a few illustrations, so the reader is getting the most variety and the author isn't showing a bias towards any specific favourite work.

A selection of his magazine illustrations could also have been included to show his progression, but many of the Rackham biographies feature these, so they are not essential to this collection. On the contrary, I would have liked to see a selection of Rackham's silouettes, as they are often overlooked as a siginificant part of his portfolio and there has not been a definitive republication of the pictures besides the books themselves yet. Some minor commentary would have also been nice so that first-time readers could get an idea why certain pictures were chosen rather than others, and to encourage them to go find the books that these illustrations come from to see the entire collection. Leaving out any commentary (besides signalling which publication each illustration is from) does focus the reader on the illustrations though, which is the whole point of a collection like this one. ( )

A beautiful collection of 86 full colour illustrations by Arthur Tackham from 26 different publications including Rip Von Winkle, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Undine, Gulliver's Travels. Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, The Rhinegold & Valkyrie, Siegfried & The Twilight of the Gods, Aesop's Fables, Arthur Rackham's Book of Pictures, Mother Goose, The Allie's Fairy Book, Little Brother and Little Sister and Other Tales by The Brothers Grimm, The Wind in the Willows etc. They show the range of his drawings whilst still retaining his distinctive style. It definitely made me want to see more of his work and to make a point of buying editions of the books he has illustrated to see how the pictures fit alongside the text proper. ( )