Edmund Dulac

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, rendered into English verse by Edward FitzGerald, with illustrations by Edmund Dulac, Hodder and Stoughton, nd. (c.1920)

Octavo; hardcover, with gilt spine and upper board titling and decorations on purple cloth, with decorated endpapers; 202pp. [half-title; 1 blank; i-viii, 1-189; 3 blank], 12 full-colour plates, tipped onto olive backing sheets and tipped in with captioned tissue guards, and a decorated title page. Spine extremities softened and spine panel sunned; some shelfwear to the hinges and some light insect damage to the boards; endpapers faded, light scattered foxing throughout (not affecting the plates); some spotting to the text block edges. Else, good.

1880 to 1930 was the era of the Gift Book. These were deluxe printings of treasured tales and other writings designed to be given out at Christmas time as presents. The effort that went into these productions was top-notch, with illustrators and designers going their hardest to come up with ever more lavish books. There were two reasons why these books came about:

First of all were improvements in technology. The ability to print colour plates took a long time to get going: in the 1700s, workshops of – mainly – women, would be given stacks of engraved plates to hand-colour. They would have an example before them at one end of the room and they would have to reproduce the areas of colour as they saw them. Interestingly, some colourists became expert in a particular colour and so would do all of the red bits, or only the blues. This meant that there were wide variations in execution in these plates; dud copies were rejected as, no doubt, were bodgy workwomen; but some, like Sarah Stone, rose out of the workshop to become illustrators in their own right.

Eventually printing processes moved to eliminate the need for hand-colouring. After an initial impression which left the black outlines upon the page, the same sheet of paper was impressed by a second plate which was inked so as to leave colour only on certain parts of the page. Another plate would leave a second colour; a third plate another colour, and so on. The problem with this early method (which, fundamentally, is how colour separation still works today) was something called “poor registration”, which occurred when the plates were not properly aligned and colour areas would imprint slightly askew: the printing equivalent of not colouring within the lines. To help combat this, illustrators were asked to draw images with thick lines which would help disguise the overlap in colours. Arthur Rackham came to prominence just before the registration issues were overcome and he cursed the thick line discipline which was forced upon him by the technology; by then, however, the style had become fundamental to his working method.

By the first decade of the Twentieth Century, registration issues were largely eliminated and delicacy of both line and colour could be reproduced relatively easily, allowing illustrators greater scope in the kinds of art that they could submit. Printers were now trying to discover ways in which text and images could be printed onto the same leaf, but for now, the ability to decorate a book with sumptuous art ignited schemes for selling seasonally-available, desirable books amongst the publishers. Hodder & Stoughton were the first to move into this new market and in 1907 they issued Tales from the Arabian Nights illustrated by Edmund Dulac.

The second reason for the appearance of the Gift Book was a change to the copyright laws in Great Britain. In 1842, the laws had been changed so the author of a particular book retained ownership for forty-two years, or the term of their life plus seven years (whichever came first); this was an extension of the previous duration outlined under the previous law. In 1911, the law was further changed, extending copyright for the duration of the author’s life plus fifty years. Thus, the period of the Gift Book coincided with a frantic scurrying by publishers to grab the rights of as many popular titles as they could and hurry them into print. The Water Babies became free from copyright in 1905; Alice in Wonderland became available in 1907; Treasure Island and Kidnapped were available in 1925 and 1928 respectively, so it’s easy to see why there was so much excitement in the publishing world. Most importantly for our present purposes however, was the fact that the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (at least FitzGerald’s first translation of it) became available in 1902.

Edmund Dulac was born in Toulouse in France in 1882 and was destined to follow his father into a legal career. However, legal life bored him and he switched to a degree in art at the École des Beaux Arts where he won early recognition along with some prizes. He relocated to the Académie Julien in Paris in 1904, but soon left for London where he set himself up as an illustrator: his first venture was an illustrated copy of Jane Eyre issued by J.M. Dent.

Afterwards, Dulac began an association with London’s Leicester Gallery and Hodder & Stoughton: the gallery would commission paintings from him which Hodder’s would purchase and use in their books. This arrangement suited everyone very well indeed, and Dulac was set to become, along with Arthur Rackham, one of the most successful illustrators of the Golden Age of Illustration. He became a British citizen in February 1912.

After the Great War, Gift Books began to wane in popularity and so Dulac turned his efforts to magazine illustration, theatre set and costume design, medal designs and decorating chocolate box tops; he even designed postage stamps and banknotes. He is especially noted for designing the currency for the Free French state during World War Two and for designing the commemorative stamps for the coronation of both George VI and Queen Elizabeth II. He was at work upon an illustrated copy of Milton’s Comus when he died of a heart attack in 1953.

The Rubaiyat which Dulac illustrated in 1909 is one of the best versions out there. The one depicted above is a later edition in a smaller format, but it is a testament to how much people liked it that it was issued several times, essentially unchanged. I do have a copy of the 1909 first edition but I thought I’d save that one until later. Somewhat harder to locate is Dulac’s Stories from the Arabian Nights (1907), and I’ve only been able to locate a German translation (admittedly though, it hasn’t been on my radar).

The very tricky thing about collecting Gift Books is that they generally find their way into the nursery, at one point or another, as kid’s books. Thus, finding a copy in good condition – without tears, and spills, and expressionistic crayon addenda – is very hard. Although, given that it’s Dulac we’re talking about here, the rewards for searching are very great indeed!

Books illustrated by Edmund Dulac:

Bronte, The Novels of the Bronte Sisters, J.M. Dent, 1905

Stawell, M.M., Fairies I Have Met, Lane, 1907

Stories from the Arabian Nights, Hodder, 1907

Dulac, E., Lyrics, Pathetic and Humourous from A to Z, Warne, 1908

Shakespeare, W., The Tempest, Hodder, 1908

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Hodder, 1909

Couch, A.T.Q., The Sleeping Beauty, Hodder, 1910

Ali Baba and Other Stories, Hodder, 1911

Andersen, H.C., Stories from Hans Andersen, Hodder, 1911

Poe, E.A., The Bells and Other Poems, Hodder, 1912

Princess Badoura, Hodder, 1913

Stawell, M.M., My Days with the Fairies, Hodder, 1913

Sinbad the Sailor and Other Stories, Hodder, 1914

Dulac, E., Edmund Dulac’s Picture Book, Hodder, 1915

Mary, Queen of Roumania, The Dreamer of Dreams, Hodder, 1915

Dulac, E., Edmund Dulac’s Fairy Book, Hodder, 1916

Hawthorne, N., Tanglewood Tales, Hodder, 1918

Rosenthal, L., The Kingdom of the Pearl, Nisbet, 1920

Yeats, W.B., Four Plays for Dancers, Macmillan, 1921

Beauclerk, H. de V., The Green Lacquer Pavilion, Collins, 1926

Yeats, W.B., A Vision, Laurie, 1926

Stevenson, R.L., Treasure Island, Benn, 1927

A Fairy Garland, Cassell, 1928

Williamson, H.R., Gods and Mortals in Love, Country Life, 1935

Cary, M., The Daughter of the Stars, Hatchard, 1939