Walter Crane and the art of Aesop

Throughout April and May in our staircase exhibition space at Central Library we are showcasing one of our special collections’ books, Baby’s Own Aesop, by Walter Crane (1845- 1915).

First published in 1887, it is a book for children which leads the reader, and the onlooker, through a series of beautifully elaborate pictures and rhymes. The wood-engraver William James Linton (Walter Crane first knew Linton as an apprentice in his workshop), wrote the verse in imitation of the ancient Greek fabulist Aesop, and the rest – the covers, the endpapers, the frontispiece, lettering, and layout – Walter Crane designed and the printer Edmund Evans printed. Behind it all was the belief that art and design could stimulate a child by being interesting and therefore it could help them learn.

Walter Crane (1845-1915), detail of photo by Frederick Hollyer, via Wikimedia Commons

As an artist Walter Crane was affiliated with the Arts and Crafts Movement, which elevated craftsmanship in the face of increasingly mechanised production techniques. Aestheticism and “art for art’s sake” are other common associations. The formal qualities of an artwork were important to him, as was his socialism, especially from the 1880s. His wish was to popularise the arts and make them a part of everybody’s daily lives. 

View of the Walter Crane and art of Aesop staircase display at Central Library

You can also browse all the illustrated pages from Baby’s Own Aesop on our online image library, Capital Collections.

Who was Aesop?

Anonymous artist. Woodcut frontispiece from a Spanish edition of Aesop’s Fables, 1489 via Wikimedia Commons

What we know about Aesop is murky at best. He belongs to the oral tradition of storytelling and he reportedly lived in Ancient Greece between 620 and 564 BCE. It is said that he may have been a slave, also that he was strikingly ugly, and that he was tongue-tied until the goddess Isis granted him the power of speech and storytelling prowess… Multiple versions of him exist and no original sources survive to tell us. As a storyteller he is as much a story himself as the stories he tells. The Greek historian Herodotus mentions him in the 5^thc. BCE – and other ancient writers refer to him; Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, and more. His name was well known, and yet we still know very little about him factually. He is very much a legendary figure, and has become the associative, encapsulating name for the animal fable in general.

What is a fable?

There is so much variety in what a fable is but broadly, it is a short, fictitious story, where everyday animals, objects, plants, or natural phenomena are the central protagonists. They are given thought and speech, and treated as if they are human. Fables are also usually thought of as having an element of morality to them, with religious, social or political themes; some kind of truth, and this reflects back onto the communities and time period in which they are told. For example, a fable is a bottom-up way of talking truth to power in a highly hierarchical society like Imperial Rome. Fables are very fluid texts and are used by different ideologies and for different agendas. Often, they are strange and contradictory, with many meanings.

Over the centuries fables have been used for pedagogy as well as entertainment, and especially from the Renaissance onwards, they have been very much associated with children. A moral from the mouth of an animal is more persuasive somehow. Also, there’s something about using an animal as a character that can specify more in a narrative than using a human perhaps; using a fox to denote a cunning person tells us more than using a human for that same character.

Baby’s Own Aesop, (1887), by Walter Crane, available at www.capitalcollections.org.uk

What does being an animal say about being a human and human society? As we know from our own culture, the animal fable holds the means to discuss so much.

Origins and history

The animal fable tradition stretches back much further than Aesop’s Greece, and indeed fable stories have been found on Sumerian tablets from c.3000 BCE. They have grown out of the oral tradition; Aesop never wrote anything himself.

In the late 4^th c. BCE Demetrius of Phalerum is credited with putting together the first collection of fables that we know about, but our oldest surviving manuscript that is a collection of fables dates from the 1^stc. CE and was written by the Roman poet Phaedrus in Latin verse. In Greece, the poet Babrius wrote another collection in Greek verse – again this was a literary work.

Lhs. Fables 11, 16 and 17, Babrius. Greek – accompanied by Latin, [? Egypt: 3^rd or 4^th c.] Morgan Library, Amherst Greek Papyrus 26
Rhs. Fabularum Aesopiarum, Phaedrus.Latin, [Reims, France: 9^th c.] M.906 [Codex Pithoeanus.]
Images from Early Children’s Books and Their Illustration, text by Gerald Gottlieb, essay by J.H. Plumb. The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; Oxford University Press, London; 1975.

In the European written tradition, the fables travelled over the centuries in both Greek and Latin – and around 1476 they were translated into German by the humanist writer and doctor, Heinrich Steinhöwel. From there they were translated into Italian, French, English (the Caxton edition from 1484), Czech, and Spanish. In the 16^thc. Portuguese monks took Aesop to Japan; and in the 17^thc. the fables were brought to China. They have spread into majority and minority languages all over the world.

With the invention of moveable type in the 15^th c. Aesop’s Fables were among the first books to be illustrated, and they have been so enduringly popular they can almost be read as a history of the printed book and a showcase of printmaking techniques.

On display are examples of early woodcuts, and finer, more detailed copperplate etching – by Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder in the 16^th c., and Wenceslaus Hollar and Francis Barlow in the 17^th c. (most of Hollar’s etchings were based on drawings by the artist Franz Cleyn.)

In the medium of wood engraving are beautiful examples by Thomas Bewick (published in 1776 and 1784), and in the 20^th century by Agnes Millar Parker (collated and republished in 2020.)

Aesop’s Fables, illustrations by Agnes Miller Parker. Bodleian Library, Oxford; 2020

Other notable illustrators of Aesop’s Fables were John Tenniel (he was unhappy with the work and redrew some of the tales for a later revised edition), Randolph Caldecott, Ernest Griset, and Harrison Weir. Arthur Rackham published a collection of fables in 1912 with a new translation by V.S. Vernon Jones, and more recent examples from the wonderful world of children’s book illustration include Lisbeth Zwerger, Brian Wildsmith, Jerry Pinkney and Charlotte Voake.

The Hare and the Tortoise, Brian Wildsmith. Oxford University Press, Oxford; 2007.

Laura Gibbs, who translated the fables for the 2002 Oxford World Classics edition, also has a comprehensive web presence which includes selections from all major Greek and Latin sources.

Lastly, in our special collections we hold a number of important editions: including a 1676 Latin edition printed in Edinburgh by George Swinton; a 17^th c. English translation with illustrations by Francis Barlow (1687); and an 1887 edition translated by George Fyler Townsend (a popular 19^th c. translation) with Harrison Weir illustrations. Also copies in Greek and Italian; translations by Samuel Croxall and Sir Roger L’Estrange; some of the John Tenniel illustrations; and a beautiful Ernest Griset copy.

Please do come in and browse our many many books!

Baby’s Own Aesop by Walter Crane

In Central Library’s Special Collections sit many special books, and one such book is Baby’s Own Aesop. It was created by the artist Walter Crane (1845 – 1915) and first seen by the eyes of little Victorian tots in 1887. It was made specifically for them, for the nursery – that was Walter Crane’s intention. And he cheats them not. Each page is a very beautiful picture, often an elaborate one, that is drawn together with a rhyme. And animals are everywhere of course, because it’s Aesop that the rhymes reference.

Porcupine, Snake & Company; The Bear & the Bees

These new publishing ventures for nursery children were all about visual literacy, and Walter Crane was an influential figure. His designs were highly decorative and architectural, colour and pattern abound; there is comedy, and visual puns – on cranes prominently. And behind it all was the belief that art and design could stimulate a child by being interesting, and therefore it could help them to learn.

The Ass and the Sick Lion

Baby’s Own Aesop is the third publication of three, the others being Baby’s Opera (1877) and Baby’s Bouquet (1878). Throughout, the line and the form show quite how good Walter Crane’s understanding of his subjects and settings was: their movement, poses and anatomy is so full of life inside the picture space. Old men have old sagging skin; foxes, deer, donkeys and lions are rendered in all their animal detail and plasticity. And his use of clear and definite lines was also helpful to the printing process which became increasingly sophisticated over the years.

Take a look at the exhibition of this beautiful book on the libraries’ image collection website, Capital Collections

Flora’s Feast by Walter Crane

Our new exhibition on Capital Collections is ‘Flora’s Feast’ by Walter Crane. It offers a digitised view of the book ‘Flora’s Feast: A Masquerade of Flowers’, first published in 1889. The artist, Walter Crane (1848-1915), was a versatile creator as well as a theorist of art and its relationship with society.

Illustrated title page for ‘Flora’s Feast’ by Walter Crane

The exhibition’s accompanying text aims to provide historical and artistic context for the separate illustrations. You can though, simply browse the delightful pictures and enjoy the online rendering of this charming Victorian children’s book.

It tells the story of Queen Flora summoning the annual procession of flowers in her garden through short rhymes and fanciful illustrations that depict the individual flowers masquerading as humans and playing at roles from human society. Following the lead of the Aesthetic movement, Crane placed an importance on the value of beauty in art. This is clearly a central consideration throughout ‘Flora’s Feast’, resulting in a pleasing aesthetic. He thoughtfully balances his compositions and incorporates elegant curved forms based on nature that bring to mind the Art Nouveau approach to design. His linguistic and visual puns add an unexpected humour that can be appreciated by readers of all ages.

The book also provides an insight not only into the artist, but also to the time period it was created in. The illustrations can act as an alternative source of evidence for the Victorian fascination with nature and botanical illustrations, which is notably demonstrated elsewhere by the work of the Pre-Raphaelites. Furthermore, the child audience that informs every image, from the lighter colours to the imaginative interpretation of flower names, affirms the increasing importance of the idea of childhood at the time which is demonstrated by Crane’s development of the child-in-garden motif shown in the image of the Buttercups below.

‘Flora’s Feast’, the Buttercups

From an artistic perspective the reader can enjoy identifying the numerous sources of inspiration that Crane incorporated into his visual style; ranging from the figures reminiscent of Botticelli’s paintings to the Medievalism of the pre-Raphaelites and the Arts and Crafts movement. Overall the format, audience and artistic style of Crane’s creation come together to act as a subtle reminder to challenge fixed definitions of art, as well as preconceived notions of its inaccessibility and isolation from the external world.

Browse all the pages from this beautiful illustrated children’s book on Capital Collections.

In the garden – Walter Crane’s children’s books

Our latest exhibition on Capital Collections, In the Garden: Walter Crane’s children’s books, was created by Elizabeth Stevens an Art History postgraduate student at the University of Edinburgh. Elizabeth completed the online exhibition as part of her internship programme between the University and Central Library. The internship programme allows students to gain practical experience outside the typical academic setting and spend time researching an aspect of the Library’s Special Collections.

Elizabeth was drawn to the Library’s children’s illustrated books collection and in particular the work of Walter Crane (1848-1915). Crane was a draughtsman, illustrator, designer and socialist. In his time, he was regarded as one of the best illustrators of children’s books in Britain. Crane’s books include retellings of classics like Aesop’s Fables as well as his own stories, making for a diverse catalogue that sold extremely well to people of all classes.

Crane’s artistic style was influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites, the Arts and Crafts Movement and Aestheticism. Alongside these artistic influences, Crane was also an enthusiastic socialist, influenced by his close friend William Morris. The exhibition allows people to see a period of transformation, both within art and within society.

The image of the ‘Child in the Garden,’ while not the most innovative in style, illustrates an important aspect of Crane’s work. The child is in a natural setting, surrounded by nature, animals and a book which illustrates the changes in attitudes towards children in Victorian Britain. Judging by a large number of laws passed during the time, childhood was beginning to be something that was protected.

It is even possible to see a practical example of this change happening in Edinburgh around the same time in our Life History of a Slum Child exhibition also on Capital Collections, where pictures show children being taught in the open air.