Golden Age Collection

22 22

VERNON HILL

On passing to an open space we came.

Where flared a raging fire, and one within

Burned, and in flickering flame writhed too and fro,

Around him spirits danced in furious glee.

Illustration to Canto viii, The New Inferno by Stephen Phillips (John Lane, 1911)

linky: http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/2008/12/01/december-and-vernon-hill/

HARRY CLARKE

'Is there anything in my poor power to serve you?' From Faust by J. W. von Goethe, translated by John Anster (Harrap, 1921)

linky: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Clarke

HARRY CLARKE

'Methinks a million fools in choir/

Are raving and will never tire.'

From Faust by J. W. von Goethe, translated by John Anster (Harrap, 1921)

HARRY CLARKE

'I am born of a thousand storms, and grey with rushing rains.' Illustration to All is Spirit and Part of Me by L. D'O. Walters from The Year's at the Spring, an anthology of poems compiled by Lettice D'O. Walters (Harrap, 1920)

HARRY CLARKE

'And the dead robed in red and sea-lilies overhead away when the long winds blow.' Illustration to The Dying Patriot by James Elroy Flecker from The Year's at the Spring, an anthology of poems compiled by Lettice D'O. Walters (Harrap, 1920)

HARRY CLARKE

'For the love of God, Montresor,

Yes, I said, "For the love of God." '

Illustration to The Cask of Amontillado from Tales of Mystery & Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe (Harrap, 1919)

E. J. DETMOLD

'The Rukh which fed its young on elephants' Illustration to The Second Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor from The Arabian Nights (Hodder & Stoughton, 1924)

linky: http://www.bpib.com/illustra2/detmold.htm

and finally...

JEAN DE BOSSCHERE

'An immense dragon lying by the waterside.' Illustration to The Reward of the World from Beasts and Men, Folk Tales Collected in Flanders (Heinemann, 1920)

linky: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_de_Bossch%C3%A8re

Wow- some fantasy art heavyweights, to be sure! I like my ‘The Heroes, Greek Fairy Tales for My Children’ for several reasons (Medici Society 1924 reprint by Charles Kingsley art by W. Russell Flint): fine printing, nice art, heroic fantasy, prose poetry. There is one passage that’s high on my list of great scenes in world literature and since text was online I have attached it along with 2 scanned plates.

There came a lady to him through the wood, taller than he, or any mortal man; but beautiful exceedingly, with great gray eyes, clear and piercing, but strangely soft and mild. On her head was a helmet, and in her hand a spear. And over her shoulder, above her long blue robes, hung a goat-skin, which bore up a mighty shield of brass, polished like a mirror. She stood and looked at him with her clear gray eyes; and Perseus saw that her eye-lids never moved, nor her eyeballs, but looked straight through and through him, and into his very heart, as if she could see all the secrets of his soul, and knew all that he had ever thought or longed for since the day that he was born. And Perseus dropped his eyes, trembling and blushing, as the wonderful lady spoke.

'Perseus, you must do an errand for me.'

'Who are you, lady? And how do you know my name?'

'I am Pallas Athene; and I know the thoughts of all men's hearts, and discern their manhood or their baseness. And from the souls of clay I turn away, and they are blest, but not by me. They fatten at ease, like sheep in the pasture, and eat what they did not sow, like oxen in the stall. They grow and spread, like the gourd along the ground; but, like the gourd, they give no shade to the traveller, and when they are ripe death gathers them, and they go down unloved into hell, and their name vanishes out of the land.

'But to the souls of fire I give more fire, and to those who are manful I give a might more than man's. These are the heroes, the sons of the Immortals, who are blest, but not like the souls of clay. For I drive them forth by strange paths, Perseus, that they may fight the Titans and the monsters, the enemies of Gods and men. Through doubt and need, danger and battle, I drive them; and some of them are slain in the flower of youth, no man knows when or where; and some of them win noble names, and a fair and green old age; but what will be their latter end I know not, and none, save Zeus, the father of Gods and men. Tell me now, Perseus, which of these two sorts of men seem to you more blest?'

Then Perseus answered boldly: 'Better to die in the flower of youth, on the chance of winning a noble name, than to live at ease like the sheep, and die unloved and unrenowned.'

Then that strange lady laughed, and held up her brazen shield, and cried: 'See here, Perseus; dare you face such a monster as this, and slay it, that I may place its head upon this shield?'

And in the mirror of the shield there appeared a face, and as Perseus looked on it his blood ran cold. It was the face of a beautiful woman; but her cheeks were pale as death, and her brows were knit with everlasting pain, and her lips were thin and bitter like a snake's; and instead of hair, vipers wreathed about her temples, and shot out their forked tongues; while round her head were folded wings like an eagle's, and upon her bosom claws of brass.

And Perseus looked awhile, and then said: 'If there is anything so fierce and foul on earth, it were a noble deed to kill it. Where can I find the monster?'

Then the strange lady smiled again, and said: 'Not yet; you are too young, and too unskilled; for this is Medusa the Gorgon, the mother of a monstrous brood. Return to your home, and do the work which waits there for you. You must play the man in that before I can think you worthy to go in search of the Gorgon.'

Then Perseus would have spoken, but the strange lady vanished, and he awoke; and behold, it was a dream. But day and night Perseus saw before him the face of that dreadful woman, with the vipers writhing round her head.

Let me add my voice to the chorus...THANKS for the scans.

There are several artists among them whom I was not familiar.

Right now I'm off doing independent study (via the Internet) acquainting myself with the work of Sidney Sime.

More Images

alanna, thank you posting all these amazing illustrations - awesome stuff!

The Minotaur was the son of King Minos' wife, Pasiphae, who was raped by Zeus who came up in the form of a white bull rising from the sea . The monster was sealed away in a labyrinth, and fed live sacrifices in the form of tribute from the shores of Mycenaean Greece. Theseus was the son of Aegeus, King of Mycenae, He was brought to the labyrinth in a black-sailed ship as a sacrifice. But Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, fell in love with Theseus, and gave him two gifts: a sword with which to slay the Minotaur, and a length of golden thread as a means to find his way out of the labyrinth. In return for saving him, Theseus promised to take Ariadne back to Mycenae with him. But having duly despatched the monster Theseus fled without her. But in his haste, he forgot to take down the black sails, and spying these from the headland Aegeus assumed the mourning sails meant that his son was indeed dead, and in his grief he caste himself into the sea and drowned. Thus Theseus was punished - for he in his falsehood had become the monster.

I love myths such as these, for they have so many connotations. There is indeed a labyrinth in the ruins of the Minoan capital, and for a time the Minoan Civilisation dominated the Mediterranean. And the Minoans worshipped the bull as a deity.

So myth invariably has a basis in historical fact.

But there is also both a moral and a psychological underpinning as well. The psychoanalyst C.K.G.Jung argued that each of us has the potential to be the hero of our own lives - and in order to do so we must be courageous. But the risk is that instead of transcending our limitations, we become the monster.

For those who are interested in comparative mythology, and how the active principle of Myth shapes our understanding of the world, I recommend the works of Joseph Campbell, especially The Masks of God and The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

linky: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell

Theseus and Medeia the witch

Theseus and Medeia the witch

 

That is a stunner!

alanna, thank you posting all these amazing illustrations - awesome stuff!

I'm glad you all liked them! Got me out of "the sleazy corner" anyway!

Theseus and Medeia the witch

 

 

That is a stunner!

Actually, for the life of me when I first looked at that picture, I was trying to figure out what she was doing with a phaser.

Definitely awesome work.

Theseus and Medeia the witch

 

 

That is a stunner!

+1

Theseus and Medeia the witch

 

 

That is a stunner!

 

Actually, for the life of me when I first looked at that picture, I was trying to figure out what she was doing with a phaser.

 

Definitely awesome work.

'tis poison i' the cup!

Actually, for the life of me when I first looked at that picture, I was trying to figure out what she was doing with a phaser.

well, she offers him the poison cup- he picks up the club and says 'Taste first or die!' she throws the cup to the ground and runs away as the wine hisses and boils and burns into the marble floor...