Frederick Coykendall

“ Even Punch takes Rackham seriously, and he has been delighting young and old for so many years that in 1922 an admirer can merely follow, with docility, the trails of praise which earlier writers have blazed. His excellences have become byewords, but there are no amusing myths or romantic legends connected with his life to excite the attention of the curious. ”

“ Rackham is happier, however, when he forsakes ordinary human habitations, for the paradise of children or magical realms not meant for mortal feet to tread. He seems to possess the mythopoeic sense of the artists of ancient Hellas, personifying natural forces and creating landscapes which stir our sense of hidden mysteries and suggest weird thoughts. ”

“ In this peaceful spot, far from the more exciting bohemian atmosphere of Chelsea, fragrant with the sweet odours of lilac and laburnum, and at Houghton, Arundel, his country home, he works patiently, like one of those quaint, keen-eyed, good-natured gnomes he loves to draw and which he in many ways resembles. ”

“ Mysterious mountain fastnesses where fearless knights seek adventures, dark defiles where dragons love to hide, spirits armed with a disquieting beauty, wrinkled old crones and many-headed ogres, wizened dwarfs and forbidding spectres with curious shifty eyes, grottoes where the Norns weave, and all the phantasmata of the little Dutch masters, constitute the sombre side of his subject matter. ”

“ The gnarled trunks, tortured and twisted, have a thousand emergent eyes frowning down upon you. The labyrinths of their forked branches are the habitations of bats and disfigured beasts, and they stretch their long-reaching arms amidst the decaying foliage in every direction, like troubling hallucinations. ”

“ As often happens in art schools, the teachings of the master are not as potent or effective as the association of gifted classmates and Rackham feels particularly indebted to Charles Ricketts, who even in those early days was a dominating and inspiring influence, distinguished for his rare taste. ”

“ Being primarily a graphic artist, and not a water colourist like Brabazon or Dodge Macknight, his colour hitherto merely enhanced the beauty of his drawings, and his development as a painter in oils will therefore be followed with special interest. We may even hope that he will not always be forced to exercise his incomparable fancy in an effort to bring an author’s word painting before the vision of a reader. ”

“ N. D. [1907] London, William Heinemann; New York, Doubleday, Page & Co.; Large Paper Edition; 1130 copies for Great Britain and Colonies; bound in white cloth; also a Large Paper Limited Edition for America; published by Doubleday, Page & Co.
The Ingoldsby LegendsThomas Ingoldsby
1907, London, J. M. Dent & Co.; New York, E. P. Dutton & Co.; Large Paper Edition; 560 copies signed by the artist; bound in vellum. [Reprinted from edition of 1898 with added illustrations.]
Fairy TalesThe Brothers Grimm
1907, London, Constable & Co. ”