Arthur Rackham was born September 19, 1867 in London. He was considered an extremely versatile artist, providing illustrations for more than sixty-five works from authors as diverse as William Shakespeare, Jonathan Swift, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Charles Dickens, and Edgar Allen Poe.

His father, Alfred Rackham, was an admiralty marshal at the Ecclesiastical and Admiralty Courts. He worked in government all of his life and impressed on his children the importance of financial security. Arthur's mother, Annie, was from a family of lace manufacturers. Arthur was the fourth of twelve children and one of the few to survive to adulthood. As a teenager he was sickly and his parents decided to send him on a sea voyage to Australia as a remedy. During this trip he kept a detailed notebook and painted two dozen landscape watercolors. This was the first time he was able to concentrate on his artwork without pressure from school or his younger siblings.

On his return from Australia, at sixteen, he took a job as a clerk at the Westminster Fire Office as a means of paying for art classes and his share of the Rackham household. At this time he enrolled himself in night classes at the Lambeth School of Art. While working as a clerk he submitted drawings to different magazines. He was first published in Scraps and Illustrated Bits . In 1892 he quit his job at the insurance office and began working full-time for the Pall Mall Budget as a staff illustrator. While working at the Pall Mall Budget he covered the music hall, light opera, and an interesting Votes for Women meeting where he illustrated a fight that had broken out between the two sides. He then quickly moved to the Westminster Budget covering the same kind of events. Arthur Rackham commented that this was the worst period of his life where he often did work he did not like. It was also apparent to him that the "camera was largely going to supplant the artist in illustrated journalism" and his "prospects were not encouraging."

He received his first commission to illustrate a book in 1893 with a travelogue of the United States and Canada titled To the Other Side . He quickly received other commissions and illustrated his first children's book in 1897, The Zankwank and the Bletherwitch by S. J. Adair Fitzgerald. From this time until 1900 he completed illustrations for Tales from Shakespeare (1899), Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift (1900), and Fairy Tales by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm (1900). His illustrations for Fairy Tales were exhibited at the Royal Watercolour Society in 1902 to critical acclaim. He published his most successful books over the next few years. These included Rip Van Winkle (1905), Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (1906), and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1907). For each of these publications his illustrations were exhibited before they were published, helping the sales of the books. He found success illustrating expensively produced gift books up until the First World War.

After the war, demand for expensive books declined greatly and in 1920 he expanded into the American market. He received almost three thousand pounds from one exhibition in New York. He also published three books solely for the American market. From 1922 to 1925, he also completed thirty drawings for the Colgate Company advertising Cashmere Bouquet Soap.

By the 1930s he was still producing some gift books but was completing numerous other works. Some of these include The Night Before Christmas (1931), Fairy Tales by Hans Anderson (1932), The Arthur Rackham Fairy Book (1933), and Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination (1935). In the late 1930s he was diagnosed with cancer and his health deteriorated rapidly. His last work was The Wind in the Willows , which was published posthumously in 1940. He died on September 6, 1939.

Bibliography

"Arousing Delight: Arthur Rackham, Artist and Illustrator," Clarke Historical Library, accessed December 13, 2011, http://clarke.cmich.edu/resource_tab/information_and_exhibits/arousing_delight/arousing_delight_index.html.

Children's Literature Review , vol. 57.

Hamilton, James. Arthur Rackham . New York: Arcade Publishing, 1990.

This collection contains correspondence, original artwork, and ephemera by or relating to the illustrator Arthur Rackham. Published volumes have been cataloged separately and are searchable via the main Free Library catalog. The collection is divided into four parts, Correspondence, Artwork, Ephemera, and Post-lifetime ephemera. The material dates from 1831 to 1996, but the bulk of the material is from 1890 to 1938. The collection includes examples of his work from his first publication, To the Other Side , until the end of his career.

The majority of the correspondence is written by Arthur Rackham, with one letter written by his wife Edyth. Artwork and ephemera make up the bulk of the collection. The artwork consists of original artwork for the many works he illustrated. There is a large amount of material from To the Other Side and a few items from his other more famous works including Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens , The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm , and The Arthur Rackham Fairy Book . The ephemera series is mostly printed greeting cards and some examples of his advertisements for the Cashmere Bouquet Soap campaign. The post-lifetime ephemera series includes auction catalogs and exhibition announcements.

This collection is arranged into four series: I. Correspondence; II. Artwork; III. Ephemera; IV. Post-lifetime ephemera. Series I. Correspondence is arranged alphabetically and then chronologically. Series II-IV are arranged chronologically, with undated materials placed at the end of the series.

Publication Information:

Free Library of Philadelphia: Rare Book Department

Finding Aid Author:

Finding aid prepared by Garrett Boos

Sponsor:

The creation of the electronic guide for this collection was made possible through generous funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, administered through the Council on Library and Information Resources' "Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives" Project.

Access Restrictions:

This collection is open for research use.

Use Restrictions:

The right of access to material does not imply the right of publication. Permission for reprinting, reproduction, or extensive quotation from the rare books, manuscripts, prints, or drawings must be obtained through written application, stating the use to be made of the material. The reader bears the responsibility for any possible infringement of copyright laws in the publication of such material. A reproduction fee will be charged if the material is to be reproduced in a commercial publication.

Processing Information:

This finding aid was entered into AT by Garrett Boos from legacy data compiled by the Rare Book Department. Each item was examined and description enhanced and standardized where necessary.

Immediate Source of Acquisition:

The majority of this collection was purchased by the Free Library from dealers, with some materials given to the Free Library by various donors.

Central Michigan University Clarke Historical Library: Mary Harbage collection of Arthur Rackham material.

Columbia University: Arthur Rackham papers, 1904-1967, MS#1041.

University of Lewisville: Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) collection.

University of Pennsylvania Manuscript Library: Arthur Rackham, Miscellaneous Manuscripts 1905-1934.

The University of Texas at Austin, Harry Ransom Center: Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) Art Collection.

• Christie, Manson & Woods.
• Columbia University. Libraries.
• George Routledge and Sons.
• Phillips Son & Neale (London, England).
• Sangorski & Sutcliffe.
• St. Louis Public Library.
• Swann Auction Galleries.

• Auction catalogs
• Book jackets
• Correspondence
• Drawings (visual works)
• Ephemera
• Greeting cards
• Illustrations
• Photographs
• Sketches
• Watercolors (paintings)

• Armour, Margaret
• Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870
• Edwards, Barbara
• Emanuel, Frank L. (Frank Lewis), 1865-
• Harris, Frank P.
• Jones, Catharine
• Latimore, Sarah Briggs
• McIntosh, Robert Dale
• McKay, Alexander
• Melville, Lewis, 1874-1932
• Osborne, Bertin
• Rackham, Arthur, 1867-1939
• Rackham, Edyth Starkie, 1867-1941
• Spielmann, M. H. (Mabel Henrietta), 1862-1938
• Von Blon, Marie Adele
• Wagner, Richard, 1813-1883
• Weather, Henry

• Art
• Children's literature--19th century
• Children's literature--20th century
• Illustrated children's books--19th century
• Illustrated children's books--20th century
• Illustration of books--19th century
• Illustration of books--20th century