Horace J. Knowles: Beyond Fairyland

Hans Andersen’s Fairy Tales KNOWLES, Horace Around the time that Knowles was finishing up his work on Peeps Into Fairy- land , this remarkable, bound, illustrated manuscript for Hans Andersen’s Fairy Tales seems to have been his next planned project. It provides a precious insight into his working process and his belief in the fully illustrated book, with decoration on every page and each line of planned type accommodat- ed for by the artist in his scheme. Intended to contain eighteen of Ander- sen’s stories, this mock up provides illustrated titles, headpieces and other illuminations for The Tinder Box and The Little Mermaid . He also completed a large original watercolour for the project, which appears in the maquette as a preparatory crayon sketch. 19. Maquette Of An Unpublished Book 1923 . Unpublished. 4to. 25.5cm x 19cm. Mock up for an edition of Ander- sen’s Fairy Tales, Bound note book with paper covered boards painted in black. Double page pictorial endpaper design, with Horace J. Knowles name and address pencilled into “this belongs to” box. Signed and dated 1923 in the lower left hand corner of the front pastedown. Ink drawings for the half title and initial page designs. Ink design and lettering for the title page. Fron- tis drawing in coloured crayon with caption for The Red Shoes. A further crayon drawing in colour for The Little Mermaid. Other page mock ups in- clude: contents, list of illustrations, story headings with line drawings, some text pages. Double page pictorial front endpapers, lettering, decoration, and illustrations in embryonic form. [33010] Includes two hand written sheets: 1) Details of The Tinder Box, with Knowles’s ideas for the number and style of illustrations and, to the verso, rough sketches for two illustrations. 2) “This is the Story I would like to make into a Book I thought it better not detach it from the other pages after all” (presumably this refers to The Tinder Box). 20. “Her only consolation was to be with her beautiful marble statue” [1923] . Original watercolour for Hans Andersen’s Fairy Tales. 56cm x 41cm. Signed by Knowles to the lower left hand corner. Glazed and framed. Image depicts a scene from The Little Mermaid. A fine copy, clean and bright. A crayon sketch of this image appears in the maquette. [33008]

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