Gilly
Flower," "Prince Boohoo," "A Sister's Bye-hours," "Jim," and "A Flock of
Four," are all published by Gardner, Darton & Co., and "Effie," by
Griffith & Farran. When one realises that not a few of these books
contain a hundred illustrations, and that the list is almost entirely
from two publishers' catalogues, some idea of the fecundity of Mr.
Gordon Browne's output is gained. But only a vague idea, as his
"Shakespeare," with hundreds of drawings and a whole host of other
books, cannot be even mentioned. It is sufficient to name but one--say
the example from "Robinson Crusoe" (Blackie), reproduced on page 32--to
realise Mr. Gordon Browne's vivid and picturesque interpretation of
fact, or "Down the Snow Stairs" (Blackie), also illustrated, with a
grotesque owl-like creature, to find that in pure fantasy his exuberant
imagination is no less equal to the task. In "Chirp and Chatter"
(Blackie), fifty-four illustrations of animals masquerading as human
show delicious humour. At times his technique appears somewhat hasty,
but, as a rule, the method he adopts is as good as the composition he
depicts. He is in his own way the leader of juvenile illustration of the
non-Duerer school.

[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM "KATAWAMPUS." BY ARCHIE MACGREGOR.
(DAVID NUTT)]

[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM "TO TELL THE KING THE SKY IS FALLING."
BY ALICE WOODWARD (BLACKIE AND SON. 1896)]

Mr. Harry Furniss's coloured toy-books--"Romps"--are too well known to
need description, and many another juvenile volume owes its attraction
to his facile pencil. Of these, the two later "Lewis Caroll's"--"Sylvia
and Bruno," and "Sylvia and Bruno, Concluded," are perhaps most
important. As a curious narrative, "Travels in the Interior" (of a human
body) must not be forgotten. It certainly called forth much ingenuity on
the part of the artist. In "Romps," and in all his work for children,
there is an irrepressible sense of movement and of exuberant vitality in
his figures; but, all the same, they are more like Fred Walker's idyllic
youngsters having romps than like real everyday children.

Mr. Linley Sambourne's most ingenious pen has been all too seldom
employed on children's books. Indeed, one that comes first to memory,
the "New Sandford and Merton" (1872), is hardly entitled to be classed
among them, but the travesty of the somewhat pedantic narrative,
interspersed with fairly amusing anecdotes, that Thomas Day published in
1783, is superb.