Chapter I: Front Matter

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.

—In the original book, captions regarding color plates are placed on
the page before illustrations; captions have been relocated after
pictures.

—The caret character is used to represent superscripts, e.g. M^R.

—Bold text has been rendered as =bold text=.

KATE GREENAWAY

KATE
GREENAWAY

BY

M. H. SPIELMANN

AND

G. S. LAYARD

LONDON
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK

1905

THIS BOOK

A TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF

KATE GREENAWAY

IS DEDICATED

TO

JOHN GREENAWAY

HER ONLY BROTHER AND LIFE-LONG COMPANION

_“K.G”

Nov. vi. 1901._

_Farewell; Kind heart. And if there be
In that unshored Immensity,
Child-Angels, they will welcome thee.

Clean-souled, clear-eyed, unspoiled, discreet;
Thou gav’st thy gifts to make Life sweet;—
These shall be flowers about thy feet!_
]

Preface

Apart from her work, full record of which is made in the following pages, there was in the life of Kate Greenaway one outstanding feature—her friendship with John Ruskin. To this, without the permission of the great critic’s legal representatives, no sort of justice could have been done. It is therefore our first duty and pleasure to put on record our great indebtedness to Mrs. Arthur Severn, Mr. Alexander Wedderburn, K.C., and Mr. George Allen, for their liberality in allowing us to make copious extracts from Ruskin’s side of the vigorous correspondence which was carried on between him and Kate Greenaway for so many years; this generous permission is only accompanied by the proviso that, in accordance with the undertaking announced by the editors and publisher of the Library Edition of Ruskin’s complete work, all of his published letters shall ultimately be included in that noble issue. These letters have here been printed with the strictest adherence to Ruskin’s peculiar method of punctuation—long and short dashes in place of commas, semicolons, and the like. From Kate Greenaway’s side of the correspondence abundant drafts have also been made, for they reveal the writer’s character and method of thought better than any independent estimate could do. That no violence has been done to her native modesty is proved by the following letter kindly communicated to us by Mrs. Severn. It was written at the time when the preparation of the ultimate _Life of Ruskin_ was under discussion:—

_8th June 1900._
39, FROGNAL, HAMPSTEAD, N.W.

My dearest Joanie— ... I feel it is very kind of you to consider my
wishes about the letters, as I know of course you could do as you wished
about them. In the later letters, I think, there is nothing I should
object to any one reading—in the early ones nothing I should mind you
reading; but there might be things in some one would feel perhaps better
not published....

I have a great many letters of his—one for nearly every day for three
years, but they are all of the time of my early letters, before his
great illness. Since—he has never written—as you will remember. I
should like to have any letters in the Life, if one is written, that
were thought desirable.

I am not sure the later ones of mine are much in a literary way; but he
did say some of the earlier ones ‘ought to exist as long as the most
beautiful of my drawings should—because they were also beautiful.’ I
tell you this because you know how great was the affection between us
that you will not think it conceit. I feel so honoured by it, that I can
only feel honoured for my name ever to appear near his. My dearest love
to you.

KATIE.

From the facsimile letter given in the following pages, it will be observed that Kate Greenaway later on developed a habit of frequently employing capital letters in unusual places. These, as a mere eccentricity, have been corrected in transcription.

Our gratitude—may we say the gratitude of our readers also?—is due to the several ladies and gentlemen who have supplied us with reminiscences, correspondence, and other information duly acknowledged in the text; indeed, with but one or two exceptions, we have been favoured with the most obliging responses. Mrs. Arthur Severn, Lady Maria and the Hon. Gerald Ponsonby, Mrs. Frederick Locker-Lampson, Mr. Austin Dobson, Miss Violet Dickinson, Mr. William Marcus Ward, the Rev. W. J. Loftie, Mr. Edward Jones, Mr. Ernest G. Brown, and the late Mr. Edmund Evans, whose death at the age of seventy-nine occurred as this book was passing through the press, all have shown an interest and have extended a friendly help which cannot be too highly appreciated or too cordially recognised.

A word must be said concerning the illustrations. The published works of Kate Greenaway are known, and ought to be found, in every house where children live and are loved. We have therefore confined ourselves, with a few rare and intentional exceptions, to work quite unknown to the public, such as early drawings of the cottage at Rolleston where her career, undreamed of as yet, was being determined, thumb-nail sketches with which she embellished her letters, and more important drawings done for sale to picture-buyers or for presentation to friends. About half a hundred have been reproduced with particular care by the ‘three-colour process,’ for the most part with extraordinary success, the rest by other methods suited to the exigencies of the case. For the use of the originals we are indebted to the kindness of many owners—to Her Grace the Duchess of Bedford, to Mr. Ernest G. Brown, Miss Violet Dickinson, Mr. Alfred Emmott, M.P., Mr. W. Finch, Mr. Campbell S. Holberton, Mr. Charles P. Johnson, Mrs. W. Levy, the Hon. Gerald Ponsonby, Mr. John Riley, Mr. Stuart M. Samuel, M.P., Mrs. Arthur Severn, Mr. Henry Silver, the Hon. Mrs. W. Le Poer Trench, Mr. Harry J. Veitch, Mr. Wm. Marcus Ward, and Mr. Creeser, as well as to Mr. John Greenaway. Other illustrations come from the collections of Miss Evans, Lady Victoria Herbert, Mrs. F. Locker-Lampson, Rev. W. J. Loftie, F.S.A., Lady Pontifex, and Mr. B. Elkin Mocatta. To all of them we express our hearty thanks, and to Messrs. Cassell & Co. our indebtedness for having permitted the publication of the border illustration with Mr. Austin Dobson’s ‘Home Beauty,’ the copyright of which they hold; and to Messrs. M’Caw, Stevenson & Orr, Ltd., of Belfast, similar acknowledgments must be made for according their consent in respect of the three famous Christmas cards which appear in colour. Our thanks are also due to Messrs. Frederick Warne & Co. for their courtesy in allowing us to reproduce the illustrations of ‘Bubbles’ and ‘The Bubble’ as well as the end-papers. The last-named are based upon the nursery wallpaper to which, with the artist’s permission, the illustrations of one of her _Almanacks_ were adapted by Mr. David Walker. Messrs. Warne are the present holders of the bulk of Kate Greenaway’s published copyright work as well as of the stock of books which were originally issued by Messrs. G. Routledge & Sons, and from them nearly all the books dealt with in the following pages are still to be obtained.

Contents

CHAPTER I

PAGE

Introductory 1

CHAPTER II

Early Years: Birth—Autobiography of Childhood—First Visit to
Rolleston—Love of Flowers—Family Trouble—Evening Parties and
Entertainments 8

CHAPTER III

Childhood in Rolleston: Early Reading—Adventures in London
Streets—A Community of Dolls—Buckingham Palace—Life in
Rolleston—Education—Brother and Father 21

CHAPTER IV

Student Days and Early Success: Early Promise and Art
Classes—South Kensington Prizes—Lady Butler—Dudley Gallery—Rev.
W. J. Loftie and Messrs. Marcus Ward—_Amateur
Theatricals_—Toy-Books and Fairy Tales—Progress 41

CHAPTER V

1877-1878

The Triumph of _Under the Window_: Royal Academy—Mr. and Mrs.
Edmund Evans—Mr. Evans’s Colour-printing—John Ruskin on Kate
Greenaway—_Topo_—Randolph Caldecott, and Mr. Walter Crane 55

CHAPTER VI

1879-1880

Christmas Cards and Books—H. Stacy Marks, R.A., John Ruskin,
and Frederick Locker-Lampson 73

CHAPTER VII

1881-1882

The Empress Frederick, Mrs. Richmond Ritchie, Ruskin, and
Mr. Punch—_A Day in a Child’s Life_—_Little Ann_ and
_Mother Goose_ 98

CHAPTER VIII

1882 (_continued_) and 1883

The Ruskin and Severn Friendship ripens—At Brantwood—_The Art
of England_—Ruskin’s Advice—Kate Greenaway’s First _Almanack_—A
Greenaway ‘Boom’—Mr. Austin Dobson 109

CHAPTER IX

1884-1885

_Language of Flowers_—_Mavor’s Spelling-Book_—_Dame Wiggins
of Lee_—Ruskin Correspondence—His Tuition and Plans for
Co-operation—Intimacy with Mrs. Severn and her Children 127

CHAPTER X

1885 AND 1886

The Move to Frognal—Ruskin: Letters and Confidences, Praise
and Blame, his Illness—Mrs. Allingham 142

CHAPTER XI

1887-1890

Kate Greenaway as a Correspondent—Her Letters to Ruskin—Her
Friends—Learning Perspective—Ruskin’s Last Letters—_The Pied
Piper of Hamelin_—Mrs. Allingham, R.W.S.—The _Book of
Games_—Elected to the Royal Institute of Painters in
Water-Colours—Paris Exhibition—Death of Mr. John Greenaway, Sr. 163

CHAPTER XII

1891-1895

Kate Greenaway’s First Exhibition—The Hon. Gerald
Ponsonby—_Almanacks_—Contributions to the Columbian Exposition,
Chicago—Book-plates—Lady Maria Ponsonby—Works Sold—_The Ladies’
Home Journal_—Death of Mrs. Greenaway—Lady Mayo—Brantwood
again—Kate Greenaway’s Criticism of Modern Art—Marie
Bashkirtseff—Friendship with Miss Violet Dickinson—Religious
Opinions—Ruskin—Views on Mr. George Meredith, etc. 179

CHAPTER XIII

1896-1897

The Last of the Almanacks—Opinions on Books, Pictures, the New
Woman, and Eternal Man—Her Defence of Ruskin 201

CHAPTER XIV

1898-1901

Kate Greenaway’s Third Exhibition—Correspondence with John
Ruskin, and Mr. and Mrs. Stuart M. Samuel—Her Views on Art,
Religion, and Books—Her Oil-painting—Death of Ruskin—Illness
and Death of Kate Greenaway—Posthumous Exhibition—The Kate
Greenaway Memorial 224

CHAPTER XV

Verse-writing: Kate Greenaway’s Feeling for Poetry—Problem,
Tragedy, and Resignation—Charm of her Verses for Children—On
Death 257