Draw me a picture

A few months ago I went to the Osborne Collection of the Toronto Public Library for their exhibition 'When Cinderella Went to the Ball - Five Hundred Years of Fairy Tales'. I bought their exhibition catalogue because I loved so many of their pieces. Next week I will be taking some students from the Toronto School of Art for a tour on the history of illustration. It's all very exciting!

Here's some favourites I scanned in.

The Brave Tin Soldier: pop ups with moving figures. Hans C. Andersen. V. Kubasta. London: Murrays Sales & Service Co. © 1973. Printed in Czechosolovakia.


Pen-and-ink drawing by William Heath Robinson for "Tommelise" in Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1913). The old mother toad makes off with Tommelise in her walnut-shell bed: "This is just the wife for my son," said the toad.

Tales from Grimm. Freely translated and illustrated by Wanda Gag. New York: Coward-McCann, © 1936.

Pen-and-ink drawing by Wanda Gag from her retelling of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (New York: Coward-McCann, © 1938).

Papercutting of "Bremer Musicians" by Nelly Hofer (unpublished, ca. 2005).

Little Red Riding Hood. London: Dean and Son, [between 1857 and 1865].

The golden goose book: being the stories of The golden goose, The three bears, The 3 little pigs, Tom Thumb. With numerous drawings in colour and black-and-white by L. Leslie Brooke. London and New York: Frederick Wrne and Co., [ca. 1930?].

Cinderella. Designed by Inge Wolgast. Rostock: Lesemaus Miniaturbuchverlag, 2003. Number five in an edition limited to twenty-five copies.


Pen-and-ink design by Walter Crane for the cover of Bluebeard's Picture Book (London and New York: John Lane, [1898?]).