ART & ARTISTS: Walter Crane

Monday 1 July 2024

Walter Crane - part 14

Walter Crane (15 August 1845 – 14 March 1915) was an English artist and book illustrator. He is considered to be the most influential, and among the most prolific, children's book creators of his generation and, along with Randolph Caldecott and Kate Greenaway, one of the strongest contributors to the child's nursery motif that the genre of English children's illustrated literature would exhibit in its developmental stages in the later 19th century.

Crane's work featured some of the more colourful and detailed beginnings of the child-in-the-garden motifs that would characterise many nursery rhymes and children's stories for decades to come. He was part of the Arts and Crafts movement and produced an array of paintings, illustrations, children's books, ceramic tiles, wallpapers and other decorative arts. Crane is also remembered for his creation of a number of iconic images associated with the international socialist movement.

For more in-depth biographical notes see part 1, and for earlier works see parts 1 - 13 also.

This is part 14 of a 19-part series on the works of Walter Crane.

1896 The Faerie Queene A poem in six bookspublished by George Allen & Unwin Ltd.

Held as one of the most beautiful works of the late 19th century arts and crafts movement, Walter Crane’s lavishly illustrated edition of Edmund Spenser’s masterpiece Faerie Queene was printed in a limited run of 1,000 copies. It is one of the most highly praised and sought-after legends in fine printing history. London publisher George Allen printed this six volume set in 1897.

Written during a time of intense religious and political controversy, The Faerie Queene is an incomplete epic poem and a masterpiece of fantastical allegory written by English poet Edmund Spenser in the late 16th century. The Faerie Queene was originally intended to include twelve books in heroical verse style, however only six volumes were published before Spenser’s death in 1599. Despite this, The Faerie Queene persists as one of the longest poems in the English language, and is regarded as a singularly important poetic work from the Elizabethan period.