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MARRIAGE AND SUCCESS

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

Madame Zola at the Mansion House. W.B., 29 September 1893.

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