An Antique Books Guide: October 2014

Charles Robinson is one of the most notable Golden Age illustrators - a group of book illustrators recognized for their talent and popularity between 1870 and 1930 (approx). He is one of three brothers, with the other two also being illustrators - the renowned William Heath Robinson and the lesser known Thomas Heath Robinson.

He is also perhaps the best line-artist, capable of producing beautiful art-nouveau line drawings of immense detail, along with bright and energetic colour illustrations too. This post aims to showcase just a fraction of his repertoire for you, in the hope that you too might come to appreciate the talent of this extraordinary illustrator. I shall display his renowned black and white illustrations for various fairy-tale stories along with the popular colour plates that have helped to make him a household name in children's book illustrations.

Blog article about the Golden Age Illustrators:

http://anantiquebooksguide.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/the-golden-age-illustrators-arthur.html

Blog article about C. Robinson's edition of Alice in Wonderland:

http://anantiquebooksguide.blogspot.com/2014/09/1907-alices-adventures-in-wonderland-by.html

First up is one volume in the 'The True Annals of Fairlyand' set - a stunning series that spanned several books of various design, all featuring the beautiful black and white and colour plates in first edition form.

These books either have gilt covers (as above) or highly decorative pictorial covers - later editions generally.

The title page and frontispiece are usually intricate and feature a colour plate in most first editions.

Illustrations throughout are then in black and white, showcasing C. Robinson's strength as a line-artist.

'The Suitors of Aprille' is a rarer title and more obscure but no less beautiful.

Here are the pictorial covers that are so sought after in early editions.

Note again the double-title page/ frontispiece combo and the intricate line-drawings.

'The Happy Prince' is a work by Oscar Wilde and features a beautiful colour plate as the frontispiece.

The covers are striking yet simple.

The illustrations is in typical art-nouveau fairy-tale style.

Another 'Annals of Fairyland' title, this time a slightly later edition yet featuring all of the beautiful illustrations.

The covers hide the beauty inside.

The title page is ornate and similar to the other titles above in that both pages are lavishly illustrated with monochrome line-drawings.

Many chapter pages feature full-page illustrations of incredible intricacy.

And now, Charles Robinson's finest work: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland,

The first edition of this book is dripping with C. Robinson style and is perhaps the best illustrated edition of Alice in Wonderland, rivaling even Arthur Rackham's acclaimed edition.

The covers are gilded intricately.

The title page embraces the playing card theme that comes into the book near the end.

The colour plates are simple but bursting with vibrancy and suit the innocence of the tale perfectly.

The line-drawings are nexpectedly beautiful, with incredibly intricate scenes as usual.

Thanks, as ever, for reading and please share/ take a look at my other posts if you found this interesting.

The Chiswick Shakespeare is a renowned series that featured all of Sakespeare's best-known works in handy pocket volumes, each with updated text and beautiful illustrations by Byam Shaw. The bindings are uniform, with stunning art-nouveau gilt patterning which compliments Shaw's beautiful illustrations. A single volume can be bought for anything from £35-£70 whilst complete sets are very scarce and often reach low thousands.

These are some of the most sought-after editions of any Shakespeare publication and look beautiful on a bookshelf. Below I have added a number of photographs to show both the deluxe vellum edition and the standard green cloth edition.