LIBÉLULAS || Christa Zaat

Christa Zaat







Warwick Goble (British illustrator of children's books) 1862 - 1943
The Water-Babies. A Fairy Tale For a Land-Baby, 1909
illustration
private collection

The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby is a children's novel by the Reverend Charles Kingsley. Written in 1862–63 as a serial for Macmillan's Magazine, it was first published in its entirety in 1863. It was written as part satire in support of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species. The book was extremely popular in England, and was a mainstay of British children's literature for many decades, but eventually fell out of favour in part due to its prejudices (common at the time) against Irish, Jews, Americans, and the poor.

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Goble was born in Dalston, north London, the son of a commercial traveller, and educated and trained at the City of London School and the Westminster School of Art. He worked for a printer specializing in chromolithography and contributed to the Pall Mall Gazette and the Westminster Gazette.

In the 1890s, he contributed half-tone illustrations to monthly magazines such as Strand Magazine, Pearson's Magazine, and The Boy's Own Paper. In 1893, he was exhibiting at the Royal Academy.[1] In 1896, he began illustrating books. In 1898, he was the first to illustrate H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, having illustrated it for Pearson's Magazine in 1897. He briefly continued with scientific romance themes.

In 1909, he became resident gift book illustrator for MacMillan and produced illustrations for The Water Babies, Green Willow, and Other Japanese Fairy Tales, The Complete Poetical Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, Stories from the Pentamerone, Folk Tales of Bengal, The Fairy Book, and The Book of Fairy Poetry. During World War I, he was employed in the drawing office of Woolrich Arsenal, and volunteered for service with the Red Cross in France. He worked occasionally for New York MacMillan, and produced editions of Treasure Island and Kidnapped. Goble gradually gave up illustration to pursue sculling, cycling, and travelling. He died in his Surrey home in 1943.