not an easy one, and ultimately Knowles’s commissions for great fully-illus- trated books were fewer than his talents deserved. Nevertheless, the works with every element executed by Knowles still number four; Peeps Into Fair- yland (1924), Eager Heart (1931), Countryside Treasures (1946) and The Legend Of Glastonbury (1948). Knowles would confide to fellow Poplar resident A. J. L. Hellicar late in his life that “during his career he had suffered difficulties, disappointments and despair but, in his own words, it had been ‘worth it all in the end’”. Less than a year before his death, in the autumn of 1953, Knowles contributed an article to The Georgian, the magazine of the George Green’s School in East London. It finds Knowles in a reflective mood, but at the age of sixty-nine struggling to find the words to describe the artist’s life. The passage is worth quoting in full: “I wish I could convey to you a little of the joy and peace and satisfaction that the artist has in drawing some of the beautiful things that are about, with as much care, skill and tenderness as he is capable of: almond blossom, say, or a lovely little bud, a cluster of berries, a fallen leaf with its edges beginning to curl up in the most delightful of ways, the markings on a tree trunk, and a thousand and one things.”
HORACE J. KNOWLES 19
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