{"id":31665,"date":"2026-09-14T16:30:02","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T15:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/?p=31665"},"modified":"2026-09-14T15:33:43","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T14:33:43","slug":"harry-clarkes-fairy-tales-by-hans-christian-andersen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2026\/09\/14\/harry-clarkes-fairy-tales-by-hans-christian-andersen\/","title":{"rendered":"Harry Clarke’s Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Six years ago I put together a post of links to online sources for all of Harry Clarke’s major works of illustration. His first illustrated book, Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen<\/em>, was among these but the best link I could find at the time was to a set of scans at Flickr which didn’t include things like the board illustrations. (And Flickr is a generally unstable host for anything.) The images here are from this page<\/a> which was added recently to Wikimedia Commons, and are taken in turn from a collection of book scans at Maastricht University<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Clarke’s book of fairy tales was published by Harrap in 1916 but wasn’t intended to be his first illustrated edition. Harrap’s first commission had been for an edition of Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner<\/em> but the project was abandoned when most of the art was destroyed during Ireland’s Easter Uprising. Further plans for an edition of Pope’s The Rape of the Lock<\/em> were also abandoned. Harrap’s decision to launch a new artist with yet another collection of Hans Christian Andersen stories seems surprising when there were already many fine editions for British book-buyers to choose from. The Robinson brothers\u2014Thomas, Charles and William\u2014had collaborated on a huge story collection<\/a> published in 1899, with their individual contributions being subsequently repackaged as separate volumes. The same year saw another edition<\/a> for which Helen Stratton provided over 400 illustrations. Edmund Dulac and Dugald Stewart Walker had produced books of their own by the time Clarke’s edition was being prepared, and there were others besides these.<\/p>\n

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Clarke’s collection has more stories than some of those illustrated by his contemporaries but his art is also a little less assured than it would be in his later books. As a fairy-tale collection it lacks the delicate touch he brought to his illustrated edition of Perrault’s tales. There are many excellent compositions, especially among the black and white drawings but also a few pieces which aren’t so much composed as filled with competing areas of decoration that overwhelm the subject of the picture. Clarke never abandoned his fondness for minute details but in his later books his arrangements of tiny circles and baroque curlicues are much more successful.<\/p>\n

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Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 The illustrators archive<\/a><\/p>\n

Previously on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 Harry Clarke\u2019s Elixirs of Life<\/a>
\n\u2022 Fire in the Blood: Harry Clarke<\/a>
\n\u2022 Harry Clarke\u2019s illustrated Swinburne<\/a>
\n\u2022 More Harry Clarke online<\/a>
\n\u2022 Harry Clarke online<\/a>
\n\u2022 Harry Clarke record covers<\/a>
\n\u2022 Thomas Bodkin on Harry Clarke<\/a>
\n\u2022 Harry Clarke: His Graphic Art<\/a>
\n\u2022 Harry Clarke and others in The Studio<\/a>
\n\u2022 Harry Clarke\u2019s Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault<\/a>
\n\u2022 Harry Clarke in colour<\/a>
\n\u2022 The Tinderbox<\/a>
\n\u2022 Harry Clarke and the Elixir of Life<\/a>
\n\u2022 Cardwell Higgins versus Harry Clarke<\/a>
\n\u2022 Modern book illustrators, 1914<\/a>
\n\u2022 Illustrating Poe #3: Harry Clarke<\/a>
\n\u2022 Strangest Genius: The Stained Glass of Harry Clarke<\/a>
\n\u2022 Harry Clarke\u2019s stained glass<\/a>
\n\u2022 Harry Clarke\u2019s The Year\u2019s at the Spring<\/a>
\n\u2022 The art of Harry Clarke, 1889\u20131931<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Six years ago I put together a post of links to online sources for all of Harry Clarke’s major works of illustration. His first illustrated book, Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, was among these but the best link I could find at the time was to a set of scans at Flickr which didn’t … Continue reading “Harry Clarke’s Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"New blog post: Harry Clarke's Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,42,21,48],"tags":[2117,99],"class_list":["post-31665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-books","category-fantasy","category-illustrators","tag-hans-christian-andersen","tag-harry-clarke"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-8eJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31665"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31668,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31665\/revisions\/31668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}