Cicely Mary Barker

A Fairy Orchestra*

Found in the Peter Haining archives this long piece from 1995 about the great Flower Fairy illustrator Cicely Mary Barker. It is likely to be the fruit of research by PH's good friend the amazing W.O.G. 'Bill' Lofts. Cicely Mary Barker's beautiful illustrations are still much loved and have become something of an industry. She also produced some deeply religious illustrations which are also of very high quality.

CICELY MARY BARKER

Wander into almost any stationers', gift or book shop, and you will see them - on cards and calendars, notelets and writing pads, diaries and address books, pencil tins and wrapping paper - even on tins of tea and Wedgwood china collectors' plates! The Flower Fairies suddenly seem to be everywhere.

They never really went away, of course - since they first appeared over 70 years ago, they have continued to work their magic

The Eric Parker Story

From the files of Peter Haining this draft of a piece by W.O.G. ('Bill') Lofts on the great Sexton Blake illustrator Eric Parker (1898 - 1974). It was published in the early 1980s in the Australian magazine Collector's Digest.

The Eric Parker Story.

By W.O.G. Lofts.

For over twenty years, it was my good fortune and privilege to meet many Directors, Editors, sub-editors, authors, and artists, not only down Fleet Street, but in the home of it all at Fleetway House in Farringdon Street, the home of the mighty Amalgamated Press. I use the expression 'fortune' in the sense, that living in London, it was quite easy for me to make these short trips.

Always firmly believing in sharing information with others not so fortunate, I used to write up many of these events in the various magazines circulating at the time. Nearly all personalities I'm glad to say, freely gave me information not only about themselves, but about the papers they were connected with in pre-war days. Papers that gave so much pleasure to us,

Arthur Wragg 'These Thy Gods' (1949)

Found in the Jimmy Kanga hoard These Thy Gods (Longman, Green and Co., London, 1949) by William Purcell, illustrated by Arthur Wragg. The artist and illustrator Arthur Wragg is slightly  forgotten, although there was a good art book on him by Judith Brook a former pupil Arthur Wragg: Twentieth-century Prophet and Jester (Sansom 2001). He was collected by Jimmy Kanga and also another eccentric hoarder the great Baron Corvo scholar Donald Weeks. Wragg's style is stark, apocalyptic and symbolic. The frontispiece and d/w image neatly sums up the addictive 'Gods' of the time with a sort of totem pole. It appears to depict - (from the top) -- Television, jet travel (war?) sex/ entertainment/ parties/glamour then gambling, smoking, drinking, money, work (the thumbs?) and drugs and medicine. The 'blurb' on the back panel of the jacket reads:

A struggle for survival now challenges the people of the United Kingdom, a struggle only to be won by stern qualities of personal morale. Are these qualities being produced? Is there a solution to the urgent problems of our uneasy peace? 'These Thy Gods' ruthlessly anatomises life today and points towards a firm and practical Christianity as our final chance. 

Indifference, selfishness, materialism and cynicism are shown here as they actually appear in people's lives. From the man who believes in nothing, the worker who "couldn't care less" to the girl with the film-world's scale of values and the couple lost like babies in the matrimonial wood, the people in this book are all types we know - types in whom we may recognise ourselves.
This book is to help us to judge, and to care while there is yet time.

Some of these short essays with their illustrations were originally published in the magazine 'John Bull', where they attracted considerable attention. The Rev. W. E. Purcell will be known to many for articles written in an easy style, free from pedantry and "pulpit terminology", and he also rites successful short stories under a pseudonym. The brilliant illustrations, designed to add to rather than repeat the text, recall Storm Jameson's remark about Arthur Wragg's earlier drawings for 'Jesus Wept', "I wish every comfortable person in the country had a copy put into their hands". 

Pulp fiction art

This original artwork was one of three covers created for a number of 1940s pulp magazines published by a British company. The series was called the ‘Headline series’ because each story was built around a newspaper headline-- to be found sketchily depicted at the bottom left hand corner of each cover. The other two pieces of artwork were for Road to Nowhere and Road to Revenge—both stories by someone called Max Foster. There seem to have been at least 20 tales in this particular series.

In the ultimately futile three hundred year old debate that has raged regarding ‘high ‘ and ‘ low art’, such ‘ low’ art as these pulp fiction covers, is often derided for the poor quality of the  draughtsmanship, whereas the simple truth is that for pure draughtsmanship, as opposed to piercing originality or ‘ vision’, this art is often more impressive than that of many ‘ high’ artists. Next time you visit Tate Britain wander around the many rooms devoted to Turner and study the groups of figures that inhabit the foregrounds of his huge oil landscapes. You might be surprised at how inept our greatest painter could be at depicting the human figure.

Then return to the work of ‘low’ book illustrators and marvel at how well most of them could draw. [RMH]

Hector Whistler

 

Co-editors Anthony Dickins and Tambimuttu, who Geoffrey Grigson appropriately nicknamed ‘Tutti-Frutti’, made an unusual choice when they asked the thirty-four old Hector Whistler to illustrate the debut issue of Poetry early in 1939. Trained at the Slade and the Architectural Association schools, the multi-talented Whistler, who was related to American genius James McNeill Whistler and was cousin to both Rex and Laurence, was better known as a muralist, having, five years earlier, executed some rather unusual wall paintings at the council-owned Aero Café on the Marine Esplanade in Ramsgate.

Alas, the murals, which were supposed to be temporary anyway, were obliterated along with the whole Lido complex on Ramsgate’s waterfront, some time ago, and unlike the more celebrated Vorticist wall decorations by Wyndham Lewis in La Tour Eiffel restaurant, off the Tottenham Court Road, which also disappeared, there doesn’t seem to be any record of what they looked like. The curious art lover will just have to look up Whistler’s other decorations for books to imagine what holidaymakers and the residents of Thanet lost when the despoilers moved in. [RMH]

Horror in the Night by Richard Macgregor (aka MacGregor Urquhart )

A local dealer has this graphic artist's illustration for a lurid book cover. He thinks he may have bought it from someone selling a quantity of book cover illustrations on card (gouache, watercolour etc.,) by the railings on Bayswater Road about 30 years ago. Art (now mostly kitsch and worse) is still sold there every Sunday. Often these illustrations  have lettering so you can see the title, but not in this case, and no artist had signed either.


By sheer chance he found the actual book that had used the illustration - in a box of SF, fantasy and horror paperbacks.  The book was Horror in the Night, a short story collection by Richard Macgregor published by Digit in London in 1963. Not a lot is known about Macgregor, these were 5 short horror stories and he seems to have written 5 other books between 1963 and 1964 for Digit. Titles like The Deadly Sun, Creeping Plague, The Day a Village Died --- a category that came to be known as Doom Watch fiction, possibly post apocalyptic in content. A further book Taste of the Temptress came out in Sydney in the mid 1960s published by Eclipse, so he could have been Australian -this was also published by Digit so possibly not (also it seems he was from Essex - see the excellent Bear Alley.) As for the artist it could be one R.A. Osborne (1923 - 1973) art director of Digit at the time and responsible for many of their covers including Macgregor's Day a Village Died, the story of a village plagued by killer ants.

This piece first appeared at our old site Bookride and since then new information has come to light via dealer Cold Tonnage and the IMDB database. It seems that his real name was MacGregor Urquhart. IMDB's short biography says he 'was a writer and actor, known for The Powder Monkey (1951), John of the Fair (1951) and The Malory Secret (1951). He died on March 17, 1967.' His first work of fiction appeared in the early 1960s  so it seems that his writing career followed his spell in movies. Further investigation shows he was also a playwright with at least one published play Investigation. A Pay in Three Acts (Evans, London 1958.)

Jacynth Parsons, W.B. Yeats and 'The Songs of Innocence'

WB Yeats' preface to an illustrated edition of William Blake's Songs of Innocence (Medici Society 1927.) The illustrator was a young English girl called Jacynth Parsons*. It is an interesting piece about the illustrator but also about the Ireland of the time. The joke of doing the thing you are refusing to do (i.e. write a preface) is reminiscent of another Irish writer -George Bernard Shaw. GBS would reply to requests for his signature with notes such as 'Sir, I never give autographs! George Bernard Shaw.' There is very little about Jacynth Parsons online and no Wikipedia page.

Prefatory Letter
To the Medici Society.

Dear Sirs,
A Dublin maker of beautiful stained glass brought to my house last night a 16 year old English girl with a face of still intensity, her black plaited hair falling between her shoulders. He laid a large portfolio on a table in the middle of the room, as I had already refused to write the preface for her drawings I carried the portfolio to a table in a distant corner. Those present were a Free State officer, a distinguished dramatist, a country gentleman with imperfect sight who has the history of modern Italy read to him for five hours a day because he thinks it is like that of modern Ireland.We arranged our talk unconsciously that it might contain incidents to amuse a young girl fresh from Grimm's goblins and Treasure Island. Somebody told stories of our civil war, I pointed to the bullet hole in the study door and hinted at all the Free State officer could tell if he were not silent and gloomy. Presently he said Republicans were bound to win the general election in September, and all kinds of horrible things, and in a minute we had exchange civil war for politics.  But I am old and impatient and have listened to one theme or the other most Monday evenings these five years.

So I brought the portfolio back into the middle of the room and for the rest of the evening we talked of nothing but these pictures   It is natural that she should picture pretty children playing among the squirrels, but not that she should draw hands and feet like that; make hair coil in those great heavy folds where there is so much nature and so much pattern; discover the poignant emotion of those two figures half lost in the dark wood;

Lovat Fraser on Sty Head Pass

A news clipping from 1919 found pasted to the endpapers of Hall Caine's The Story of a Crime. It is by the artist Lovat Fraser  - obviously a lover of the area, but keen on sharing it with others to the extent of wanting a road to it. He seems to be talking about a sort of Edwardian nimby but as far as I know the road was never built, although the campaign had been going on for about 15 years. Fraser writes well, some of the descriptions of scenery are reminiscent of John Buchan..

Sty Head Pass

The fate of the proposed road over Sty Head Pass, in the Lake District, may be decided today at Carlisle. I have read dozens of protests against the scheme, not one word in its favour. With some trepidation, I wish to take the lists against the crag  climbers on the fell wanderers and to back Mr. Musgrave of Wastdale and his road.

Here is my own experience. Late last October I went through lovely Borrowdale to Seathwaite and walked over the Sty Head Pass down towards Wastdale, and back. Everybody who visits Lakeland has heard about Seathwaite which has the reputation of being the wettest place in England, and has earned it.

By a miracle I struck one of those rare windless autumn days which sometimes break a long wet season. The atmosphere was crystal clear, without a trace of haze, the mountains were steeped in warm sunshine. They told me at Seathwaite that there had been be no such glorious day all last year.  As I sat and smoked my pipe by the cairn at the summit of the pass, and stared down the tremendous gorge between Great Gable and Scafell at the patch of emerald green at Wastdale Head far below I felt I had garnered another lifelong memory.

I spent the best part of the day on the pass sketching and taking a photograph or two. In all that time I never saw a single human being. That is my case for the road.

Sty Head Pass is, so far as I know, the wildest and grandest piece of scenery in England. Even in sunlight it is grimly majestic, a mighty altar, the sort of spot I never dreamed existed in this country. Instead of being known merely to a few people who regard the fells and crags as their private preserve, it ought to be visited every year by tens of thousands of humble folk who can never hope to see the Alps or the Himalayas.

One travels for remembrance. The chief joy of travel is in retrospect. Men build picture galleries for the multitude, but why not show people the most glorious pictures of Nature? Why not help them to store their minds with memories which, as every traveller knows, are an alleviation in times of trial and a solace in old age? The vivid recollection of Styhead Pass as I saw it is worth all the pictures ever painted.

These few climbers and others up forgather at Wastdale Head and other places are trying to keep their Scafell sanctuary to themselves; because that is what all this agitation really means. They may talk of desecration and pretend to tilt against motorists, but they are really precious souls who shrink from contact with the masses.

They do not want tens of thousands to see this mountain fastness. They want to draw a veil between the nation and its heritage. They represent exactly the spirit which leads men to enclose a big park keep it selfishly for their private enjoyment.

This road is needed because Styhead is just too remote to be easily reached and crossed by people who are not well-to-do. The pass is just too steep and difficult for those not in full vigour. Until the road is made, the finest of the western lakes will never be seen by most visitors to Lakeland.

Illustration by Lovat Fraser

Edward Gorey - West Point & the Dictionnaire Infernal

A card from Edward Gorey to the great Baron Corvo expert Donald Weeks. Dated 1965. Donald had been an early fan of EG and used his art as illustration in the General Motors house magazine Friends of which he was art editor. The Dictionnaire Infernal was a typical present from Donald, a serious collector of curious and out of the way books. It is a work by de Plancy on demonology, organised in hellish hierarchies. There were several editions of the book, but the best known is the edition of 1863, in which 69 illustrations were added to the book -drawings which try to depict the descriptions of the appearance of several demons. This is most likely the edition he sent to 'Ted.' The illustration on the card is a gloomy 19th century steel engraved view of West Point. Its significance is obscure but it has a Gorey style about it. The influence of the illustrations in the  Dictionnaire Infernal  on Gorey's oeuvre is worthy of research! As for Bette Davis, it is interesting to see she was already a cult nearly 50 years ago.

 'Dear Don. Many thanks for the Dictionnaire Infernal, I've only had a chance to dip into the text but just the illustrations are marvelous. I expect one of these days you'll see bits of them turning up in the work of you-know-who. We are in the throes, and I do mean throes, of a Bette Davis festival at the New Yorker theatre. Sheer delight. Best, Ted.'