Laurence Housman, 1865-1959

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Biography

"Laurence Housman, one of the most innovative or influential of the 1890s, in a brief career of less than ten years, created some of the most striking black and white illustrations of the period. His original meticulously drawn pen and ink drawings remain rare today. His first sucsess was his illustrated edition of Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market. This work is now considered Housman's masterpiece. Housman's illustrations and decorations were innovative attempts at creating from his self-professed 'Freakish imagination'" (Fairy Folk).

Another poem which I illustrated about this time Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market, I did of my own choice, author and publisher consenting. But this time I did not satisfy the person who mattered most. I had hoped to get word that my drawings had pleased her; but the only comment that reached me was her answer to a congratulating friend who liked them. She shook her head, saying, I don't think my Goblins were quite so ugly.

From another quarter they brought me better encour agement. Sir Frederick Leighton, who as official head of English Academic art, kept a fatherly eye on new arrivals, sent me a letter of appreciation, and asked if I would do a drawing for him. Eventually he chose my title-page design to Goblin Market, saying that what struck him most in my work was the combination of figures with decoration. After Leighton came Aubrey Beardsley, asking me to do a drawing for The Yellow Book.

From that time on, I did a good deal of work for John Lane, the publisher most closely identified with the movement of the Nineties, on which he built up his business. — Laurence Housman, The Unexpected Years

Illustrations for Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market

• Looking at the goblin men
• Come buy
• Come buy (II)
• [Goblins by a stream]

Illustrations for Jean Barlow's The End of Elfintown

• Title-page
• Page decoration (I)
• Page decoration (II)
• No more round Faery-ring they slept
• Oberon . . . watched . . . his peerless city waxing on
• First Elfrain . . . spake
• [Fairy with outstretched wings]
• [Fairy reaching for an arrow in his quiver]
• No more for us the deep woods
• [Fairy with folded wings]
• The Flitting
• The Building

Illustrations for Housman's The Blue Moon

• Title-page, The Blue Moon
• The Way of the Wind
• A Capful of Mooonshine
• How little Duke Karl saved the castle
• The White Doe
• The Rat Catcher's Daughte

• A Chinese Fairy-Tale
• The Moon-Stroke
• The Gentle Cockatrice

Illustrations for George Meredith's "Jump to Glory Jane"

• "A Revelation came on Jane"
• "Her first was Winny Earnes..."
• "Not long time after Jane was seen..."
• "At morn they rose"
• "Those flies of boys disturbed them sore"
• "In Apron suit the Bishop stood..."
• "Encircled by the men of might..."
• "Her end was beautiful:—"

Illustrations for Shelley's The Sensitive Plant

• Title-page,
• Frontispiece (Death in the garden)
• Page decoration
• The dying Narcissus
• The rose nymph
• Pan covetous
• Night in the garden
• The ruling grace
• The garden enclosed
• The shadowed doorway
• The garden panic
• Pan paramount
• The Garden Entombed

Illustrations for Housman's own The Field of Clover

• Title-page and frontispiece
• The Fire-Eaters
• The Galloping Plough
• Mercury god of merchandise, look on with favourable eyes

• The Thirsty Well
• The Princess Melilot
• The Burning Rose
• The Camphor-Worm
• The Crown's Warranty
• The Wishing-Pot
• The Feeding of the Emigrants
• The Passionate Puppets

Illustrations for Housman's own Green Arras

• Title-page and frontispiece
• Antæus
• The Corn-Keeper
• The Song of the Three Kings
• The House-Builders
• The Queen's Bees

Illustrations for Housman's own The House of Joy

• Title-page and frontispiece
• The Luck of the Roses
• The Prince with the Nine Sorrows
• The White King
• The Story of the Herons
• Syringa
• Happy Returns
• The Moon-Flower

Related Material

• Laurence Housman on Pre-Raphaelite Illustration
• A. E. Housman (Laurence's brother)
• Laurence Housman's literary works

Bibliography

Fairy Folk in Fairy Land. London: Peter Naham at Leicester Galleries, 1997.

Peppin, Brigid. Fantasy: The Golden Age of Fantastic Illustration. New York: New American Library, 1976. (Also Watson-Guptill, 1975.)

Wild, Jonathan. “A loosening of silk ribbons: Laurence Housman, John Murray, and the publishing sensation of 1900.” Times Literary Supplement (November 2, 2012): 14-15.

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Last modified 19 November 2012