19 September 2000

Lewis Carroll's Alice and Wonderland and Wagner's Ring Cycle have both been published with the illustrations of Arthur Rackham. And Aesop, Hans Christian Andersen, Robert Browning, Charles Dickens, Kenneth Grahame, Jacob Grimm, Henrik Ibsen, Washington Irving, Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Mallory, Clement Moore, Edgar Allan Poe, and Izaak Walton. Rackham looked into the human imagination and took advantage of a dramatic change in printing technology to give life to fairies, imps, trolls, and dragons. His pen left sinuous detailed lines, he loved gnarled trees and lined faces, and though bright colors weren't possible his fancies have a warm glow from the watercolor wash on top of those lines. Many illustrators since, particularly in fantasy works, have been obviously influenced by his work, and books including his illustrations are highly sought after, volumes including his art are actively sold into the lowthousands of dollars in good condition.

After a string of defeats the American revolutionary cause started to improve with the first Battle of Saratoga. Two brothers in the US and a wealthy brewer in Liverpool independently found a broken rock, one of Saturn's moons and the largest irregularly shaped object yet discovered. Bissell got a patent for his carpet sweeper, and the US revoked Charlie Chaplin's permit to reenter the country. He may not have known at the time, he was on a ship bound for England.

US President James Garfield was killed by his doctors. The autopsy report made it fairly clear that if they had just left the bullet alone and kept their non-sterile fingers and probes out of his abdomen he probably could have lived a completely normal life. And fifteen years ago Mexico City was struck by a powerful earthquake. The epicenter was over 300 miles away, and it was felt in Houston, 900 miles from the quake. The damage was largely the result of the foundation of Mexico City, which is basically a bowl full of jelly - the damp clay with which the former lake was filled in behaves violently under pressure.

1777 - Continental Army under General Horation Gates defeated British General John Burgoyne's forces at the first Battle of Saratoga in upstate New York. It ended a string of defeats for the rebels.

1848 - Hyperion, a small irregular moon of Saturn (the largest known non-spherical object), discovered independently by William and George Bond in the US and William Lassell in England.

1876 - Melville Reuben Bissell was granted US Patent No. 182,346 for a carpet sweeper. The Bissells owned a pottery shop in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the dust from packing material caused Melville health problems. The brushes were made by local women in their homes, then assembled in a room above the store.

1881 - US President James A. Garfield died at Elberon, New Jersey of infection and internal hemhorage after he was shot on 2 July. Because he was laying on a bed with metal springs, Alexander Graham Bell's metal detector couldn't find the bullet. He was the last of the "log cabin" presidents, the first left handed preseident.

1952 - Two days after Charles Chaplin, with his wife Oona and four children, sailed to England to promote Limelight, the US Justice Department under orders from Attorney General McGranery revoked his re-entry permit until such time as Chaplin would pass tests to prove he had sound moral character and was not a subversive. Chaplin declined the opportunity and moved to Vevey, Switzerland.

1985 - At 7:19 am an earthquake on the Pacific coast of Mexico lasted for three minutes and was measured at a magnitude of 8.1. In Mexico City a large number of people are killed and injured, power and phones were lost, and large areas of the city were leveled. The epicenter of the quake was over 300 miles from the city.

Independence Day, Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis - Commemorates independence from Great Britain in 1983. Saint Christopher, the larger of the two islands, was named by Christopher Columbus in 1493 and became the first British colony in the West Indies with a settlement in 1623. Somewhere along the line the casual "St Kitts" replaced the original name, if I were sitting in the sun at an annual average temperature of 79 Fahrenheit I might not want to use two extra syllables either.

1867 - Arthur Rackham, British illustrator - Born at London, entered City of London School in 1879 where he thrived on art, earning school awards for his drawings. In 1884 the family moved to Australia for the winter (southern summer) in the interest of Arthur's health, his earliest watercolors were painted in this period. Returned to London and entered Lambeth School of Art, clerked at a fire department to pay tuition (salary was 40 pounds per annum), and sold his first illustrations to Scraps magazine. Left Lambeth in 1892, working full time as a reporter for the Westminster Budget, and was regularly contributing to the Westminster Gazette in 1893. His early work was largely journalism, illustration for the newspaper, but as the photoengraved halftone process replaced manually engraved wood block printing he started drawing things that didn't exist - like trolls and trees with human faes. Until the end of the century he worked with publisher J. M. Dent illustrating books, including Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare, Gulliver's Travels, and for Freemantle did his first illustrations of Grimm's Fairy Tales. Illustrated Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens for Doubleday in 1902. Married Edythe Starkie 1903, had one daughter in 1908. In 1904 he did 51 plates for an edition of Rip Van Winkle which was displayed at the fairs in St Louis and Duesseldorf to acclaim. His illustrations were pen and ink followed with watercolor, and his framed originals were showing in many of the largest museums and galleries of Europe. He was active in professional groups both in England and the continent and his work was winning medals. In addition to illustrating stories he published several collections of his fantasy art, his largest US commission was a series of soap advertisements for Colgate. Rackham illustrated at least 150 books. He died of cancer in his London home on 6 September 1939.

What is the use of a book, thought Alice, without pictures or conversations?
     - Lewis Carroll

The only words that ever satisfied me as describing Nature are the terms used in fairy books, charm, spell, enchantment. They express the arbitrariness of the fact and its mystery.
     - Gilbert Keith Chesterton

I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity.
     - Eleanor Roosevelt

This fairy tale we're living is real inside our hearts.
     - Atlantic Starr

Twisted History is sent daily, absolutely free, to our subscribers who understand that the events of the past centuries have shaped our lives today - and are probably less depressing than the events on today's TV news. Both an HTML version (which looks just like this) and a text version that is compatible with all mail clients are available.

Manage your subscription
Tell a friend about Twisted History
Leave Feedback

Copyright 2000 G. Armour Van Horn, all rights reserved. This document may be distributed freely. Please forward the complete message including this copyright notice.