EPILOGUE
England until Methuen published a popular edition at a guinea in 1950, omitting a few of the plates, including the frontispiece in which Toad, disguised as a washerwoman, attempts to bargain with the booking-clerk at the railway station – a clerk who bears an unmistakable resemblance to Arthur Rackham. The Methuen volume received a warm recognition that was all the more spontaneous because the drawings came to most people as a complete surprise.
Rackham’s will, drawn up in favour of his wife and daughter, was proved at nearly £25,000. Mrs Rackham did not long survive her husband. She died in March 1941, aged seventy-three.
As Rackham’s death occurred in the early days of the war, it proved impossible to fulfil his wish for cremation at Golders Green because the undertakers, fearful of air raids that did not happen, refused to venture into London. His funeral therefore took place at Croydon. When Mrs Rackham died, heavy air raids were such everyday occurrences that no objections were raised. Edyth Rackham was cremated at Golders Green, and her ashes were then scattered with her husband’s in the Garden of Remembrance there.
Since his death Rackham’s prestige in the book-collectors’ market has been fully maintained. It is understandable that such a prolific illustrator, who kept up a remarkably high standard of achievement over a very long period, should have become a focus of interest.
The series of de-luxe signed editions, originally published at two or three guineas, sold consistently well on publication and have appreciated considerably in value amongst collectors. Current prices (1960) range from £5 to £30 according to scarcity and popularity; there were, for example, only 250 copies of the first of the series, Rip Van Winkle in 1905, while 1100 copies of the de-luxe Alice were issued in 1907 (the average size of the signed editions was about 500 copies). Although prices have inevitably fluctuated according to the
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