{"id":6981,"date":"2010-03-29T03:16:37","date_gmt":"2010-03-29T02:16:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/?p=6981"},"modified":"2026-03-07T12:52:46","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T12:52:46","slug":"robert-anning-bells-tempest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2010\/03\/29\/robert-anning-bells-tempest\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Anning Bell’s Tempest"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"bell1.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

British artist and designer Robert Anning Bell (1863\u20131933) illustrates Shakespeare<\/a> in this 1901 edition at the Internet Archive and the work seemed to give him an excuse to embellish many of the pages with writhing mer-folk. His adaptation isn’t as striking as William Heath Robinson\u2019s Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream<\/em><\/a> from 1914 but then few books are. In style Bell is closer to his contemporary Charles Ricketts<\/a> with very open line work and no heavy black areas. Ricketts produced his own version of Ariel’s Song to Ferdinand for The Magazine of Art<\/em> in 1895 but doesn’t seem to have illustrated much more of The Tempest<\/em> as far as I’m aware, although his Vale Press did issue an edition of Shakespeare’s complete works. It hadn’t occurred to me before how few illustrated editions there are of The Tempest<\/em>; this seems surprising given the fantastic nature of the story. It might be that illustrated plays have never sold so well despite there having been a number of illustrated Midsummer Night\u2019s Dreams<\/em>. I’d love to have seen Harry Clarke tackling Ariel and Caliban.<\/p>\n

\"bell2.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"bell4.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Also at the Internet Archive is a 1902 edition of Shelley’s poems<\/a> illustrated by Bell (above) and an 1897 edition of Keats<\/a> in the same series (below). Great poetry doesn’t necessarily lend itself to illustration so it’s no surprise that these books are less interesting than the Shakespeare.<\/p>\n

\"bell3.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Bell later reworked his illustration for Keats’s Ode to Psyche<\/em> as a painting which he called Cupid’s Visit<\/em>. I much prefer the drawing to the painting.<\/p>\n

\"bell5.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Cupid’s Visit (1912).<\/em><\/p>\n

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

Previously on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 Charles Ricketts\u2019 Hero and Leander<\/a>
\n\u2022 Another Midsummer Night<\/a>
\n\u2022 Arthur Rackham\u2019s Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream<\/a>
\n\u2022 The art of Charles Robinson, 1870\u20131937<\/a>
\n\u2022 William Heath Robinson\u2019s Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

British artist and designer Robert Anning Bell (1863\u20131933) illustrates Shakespeare in this 1901 edition at the Internet Archive and the work seemed to give him an excuse to embellish many of the pages with writhing mer-folk. His adaptation isn’t as striking as William Heath Robinson\u2019s Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream from 1914 but then few books are. … Continue reading “Robert Anning Bell’s Tempest”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,30,42,21,48,43,44,46],"tags":[501,206,745,99,1141,7308,1140,499,500],"class_list":["post-6981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-black-white","category-books","category-fantasy","category-illustrators","category-magazines","category-painting","category-theatre","tag-arthur-rackham","tag-charles-ricketts","tag-charles-robinson","tag-harry-clarke","tag-keats","tag-percy-bysshe-shelley","tag-robert-anning-bell","tag-william-heath-robinson","tag-william-shakespeare"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-1OB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6981","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=6981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6981\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}