Collections and Critiques

Valuable additions to the collection of poems, woodcuts, and illustrations for fine books by Walter Crane have come into the possession of Widener Library and have been put with the collection in the Treasure Room awaiting exhibition.

This collection is now the most complete existing of the Victorian artist, poet, woodcarver, and eminent socialist. It is the gift of A. H. Parker '98, given in memory of Caroline Miller Dabney Parker, over a period of several years. Among the most recent acquisitions are first editions and original drawings of Crane's illustrations to picture books for children, which sold fifty years ago for a shilling, and are now almost priceless. These include "Mother Hubbard", "Beauty and the Beast", and "The Five Little Pigs", which subsequently ran into many editions under the name of Walter Crane's Picture Books. Along with these were many letters and sketch-books. Some time ago the collection was augmented with the receipt of Crane's famous "Illustrated Grimm's Fairy Tales", and Reynard the Fox. In these the colors are very gay, typical of his earlier works, owing to the primitive state of color-printing. Along with these were given numerous illustrations by a contemporary Randolph Caldecott, whose style was based on that of Crane.