Arthur Rackham, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens

Arthur Rackham
(1867-1939)

Famous English book illustrator
best known for his work on fairy tales and children's books


   Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens
                                                  (1906)

Based on J. M. Barrie's The Little White Bird (1902), the book focuses
on the figure of Peter Pan, a baby who lives in Kensington Gardens with
the fairies.
Rackham's deluxe and trade editions of the book both contained a color
frontispiece and forty-nine color plates as well as endpapers with a map
of  Kensington  Gardens.    This  publication  became "the outstanding
Christmas gift-book" of  1906.

                                   Fairies

Maimie and the chrysanthemum.

This  picture beautifully exemplifies  the Victorians' contradictory view of childhood,
with the beauty and innocence of Maimie's china-doll face contrasted with the image
of  a gnarled yet intriguing fancy  that  appears in the anthropomorphized flower and
Rackham's self-caricatured pointy nose and glasses.