Page:Arthur Rackham (Hudson).pdf/54

 stories.) It was the first book I did that began to bring success (the little, earlier edition, that is)….”

In this letter Rackham touches on one important reason for his triumph as an illustrator of the classics – his very thorough knowledge of the texts. Though he was completely faithful to his authors, there was nothing of slavish pedantry in his interpretations; the personal and imaginative always transcended the literal. A comparison between the first and the last editions of his Grimm emphasizes the remarkable progress that Rackham made in a decade; yet the earlier drawings that he allowed to stand can hold their own with the later ones. A reviewer of the enlarged book in the Westminster Gazette of 1909 enlisted the help of two small boys to make another point that