Customer Reviews

Arthur Rackham: A Life With Illustration

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Hamilton's 1990 work is the definitive modern biography of the great English Edwardian-era book illustrator Arthur Rackham. In addition to a splendid if somewhat hagiographic text, this oversized volume contains hundreds of examples of Rackham's best work in color and black-and-white and includes many items that have not previously been reproduced. Rackham was chiefly an illustrator of childrens' books and his unusual, indeed unique work has well stood the test of time. The soft-cover version now available is attractively priced and makes a fine, imaginative gift even for people who have never heard of Arthur Rackham.

This is a beautiful book. It is not a brand new book with this 2011 edition, it was originally published in 1990 but was out-of-print and became an expensive used book. This new edition is a great way for the author to earn the money he has earned by offering such an excellent overview of Rackham's life and work.

Hands down, this edition has some of the best quality reproductions of Rackham's work since the original publications of Rackham's work, perhaps even better than some of those. They certainly aren't yellowed with age! They are crisp, not muddy, and even more stunning as a result. A bonus is that the "usual suspects" are not as common here but the book offers many of the lesser distributed, seldom reproduced illustrations, in other words, ones you haven't seen everywhere before. If you own as much Rackham as I do, this book is still a treasure. If you own none or a little, this is an excellent way to start.

Hamilton also shares compelling insights into Rackham's life and work. For being so well recognized in his art, Rackham's life wasn't as well understood until this book was originally published. There's also interesting rather unusual appendices such as "The Business of Illustration and How Rackham Made It Pay" and "Arthur Rackham's Pattern of Earnings." Fascinating stuff. He was more than a genius at art, he was a successful businessman.