he completeness of the archive catalogued in the following pages, featuring original illustrations from practically all of Knowles’s published work, and its remaining in the artist’s family since his death, explains the absence of his original artwork from modern commerce. There is a corollary ab-
sence of his work held in public institutions and libraries, except for the gift of two small drawings he made to Poplar Central Library in April 1951. The survival of such an archive is most uncommon for an illus- trator of this period. His contemporaries, such as Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac, routinely sold their original artwork throughout their own lifetimes, whereas Knowles’s illustrations stayed with him. The opportunity to acquire an unpilfered archive of this type is, perhaps, unique. The following catalogue sets out the contents of the archive in its en- tirety, which include over 1,200 original illustrations by Knowles for pub- lished books, stories in magazines, individual commissions and preparatory sketchwork, offering an extraordinarily broad insight into the illustrator’s creative processes. There are a number of complete original manuscripts for his fully-illus- trated books, including his magnum opus Peeps Into Fairyland , as well as The Legend Of Glastonbury , Countryside Treasures, and My First Book Of Prayers. Here,
Adjacent and opposite: Finished pen and ink drawings for The Months, 1936 (Item 57).
20 HORACE J. KNOWLES
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