British Illustrators 10: Beatrix Potter

Any discussion of great British illustrators of children’s fiction in the 20^th century can’t ignore the claims of Beatrix Potter as one of the finest. She was arguably the greatest writer illustrator. Beatrix Potter wrote some thirty books, starting with The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Now, I’ll be honest, while I loved “The Tailor of Gloucester” and “The Tale of Jeremy Fisher” when I was a kid, I really didn’t like some of the other stories very much. For example, I thought that “The Roly Poly Pudding” was very weird, and not a little disturbing for that matter. But I still think that Beatrix Potter’s illustrations were never less than engaging, and some of them are absolutely enchanting.

British Illustrators 9: Thomas Henry and Just William

Richmal Crompton was a teacher in south east London who took up writing seriously in the early 1920s after polio forced her to give up her teaching career. It was about this time she created her 11 year old anti hero William Brown, popularly known as Just William after the title of her first collection of stories about him. She continued to write stories about William for almost 50 years, although it’s said she became somewhat resentful of the stories’ popularity, as she really saw herself as a writer of adult fiction.

Maybe it was the fact that I was generally a very well behaved, studious kid myself which made the scruffy, anti-authority, anarchic William appeal to me so much. Maybe it was just because the stories were so funny and well written that I loved William. I think it’s quite possible that Thomas Henry’s illustrations had something to do with it as well. Thomas Henry, although barely remembered now, was already a prolific and successful magazine illustrator by the time he was commissioned to illustrate Just William, and the William books kept him gainfully employed until his death in 1962. I’m a little frustrated that I just haven’t quite captured William’s face correctly in this copied sketch. Not quite.