SECTION 4 – LITERARY WORKS AND IMAGES FOR CHILDREN
Centered on the improvement of children’s lives, Victorian writers and artists created a number of classic works for young readers. Kate Greenaway (1846-1901), a friend of John Ruskin, lived in an Arts and Crafts house where she produced verses and watercolor illustrations designed to lead children back to a simpler time, away from industrialized England. Mothers who embraced The Arts and Crafts Movement dressed their children in the earlier styles depicted by Greenaway.
Engraved and Printed by Edmund Evans.
By Kate Greenaway. London, New York: G. Routledge & Sons, [1878].
Connected to the Pre-Raphaelite Movement through his close friendship with D. G. Rossetti, Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909) is considered to be one of England’s greatest poets. His later works are both philosophical and politicized.
A plaque with the epitaph, "Wit and Dramatist," is mounted outside the home of poet, playwright and novelist Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), a reminder that Wilde was a man of great scholarly and creative achievement. In the stories of The Happy Prince, Wilde advanced the socialistic principles of William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites.
Illustrated by Walter Crane and Jacomb Hood.
London: D. Nutt, 1888.
Author/artist Walter Crane (1845-1915), one of the most significant forces in The Arts and Crafts Movement, studied the works of John Ruskin, and the Pre-Raphaelites. He was a close associate of William Morris, for whom he designed page decorations for a Kelmscott Press imprint. Crane, like Morris, was part of The English Socialist Movement.
London: Cassell, 1891
The Letters of Queen Victoria, a Selection from Her Majesty’s Correspondence Between the Years 1837 and 1861: Published by Authority of His Majesty the King, Image of Queen Victoria, 1855., Longmans, Green, and Co., 1907
