incess Fiorimonde" (1880), the famous edition of Grimm's "Household
Stories" (1882), both published by Macmillan, and C. C. Harrison's "Folk
and Fairy Tales" (1885), "The Happy Prince" (Nutt, 1888). Of these the
"Grimm" and "Fiorimonde" are perhaps two of the most important
illustrated books noted in these pages.

Randolph Caldecott founded a school that still retains fresh hold of the
British public. But with all respect to his most loyal disciple, Mr.
Hugh Thomson, one doubts if any successor has equalled the master in the
peculiar subtlety of his pictured comment upon the bare text. You have
but to turn to any of his toy books to see that at times each word,
almost each syllable, inspired its own picture; and that the artist not
only conceived the scene which the text called into being, but each
successive step before and after the reported incident itself. In "The
House that Jack Built," "This is the Rat that Ate the Malt" supplies a
subject for five pictures. First the owner carrying in the malt, next
the rat driven away by the man, then the rat peeping up into the
deserted room, next the rat studying a placard upside down inscribed
"four measures of malt," and finally, the gorged animal sitting upon an
empty measure. So "This is the Cat that Killed the Rat" is expanded into
five pictures. The dog has four, the cat three, and the rest of the
story is amplified with its secondary incidents duly sought and
depicted. This literary expression is possibly the most marked
characteristic of a facile and able draughtsman. He studied his subject
as no one else ever studied it--he must have played with it, dreamed of
it, worried it night and day, until he knew it ten times better than its
author. Then he portrayed it simply and with irresistible vigour, with a
fine economy of line and colour; when colour is added, it is mainly as a
gay convention, and not closely imitative of nature. The sixteen toy
books which bear his name are too well known to make a list of their
titles necessary. A few other children's books--"What the Blackbird
Said" (Routledge, 1881), "Jackanapes," "Lob-lie-by-the-Fire," "Daddy
Darwin's Dovecot," all by Mrs. Ewing (S.P.C.K.), "Baron Bruno"
(Macmillan), "Some of AEsop's Fables" (Macmillan), and one or two others,
are of secondary importance from our point of view here.

[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM "THE WONDER CLOCK." BY HOWARD PYLE
(HARPER AND BROTHERS)]

[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM "THE WO