the book collector
Talwin Morris became Art Director at Blackie in Glasgow and, influenced by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Glasgow School, was introducing that style to the covers of Blackie’s list. Morris had originally trained as an architect which was presumably where he encountered the Art Nouveau movement. Attracted to new design ideas, he changed career and moved to Cassell’s where he worked in art editorship until he secured the role at Blackie in May 1893. His work there became extremely influential in Victorian book design and other publishers were not slow to pick up on the new design aesthetic. John Lane for example was using Aubrey Beardsley for designs and posters advertising his Keynotes series. We know that UnwinwasattractedtoArtNouveauthroughtheworkofBeardsley. He commissioned him to produce illustrations for children’s books in the early 1880s and in 1893/4, two posters – one for the Children’s Library and one for the Pseudonym and Antonym Libraries . Another Art Nouveau artist employed by Unwin was Althea Gyles who, at Yeats’s request, designed the cover for his ‘Poems’ published in 1899. But the Poppies design was not produced by any of these; it is unsigned but I believe it is the work of Selwyn Image. Better remembered today as a designer of stained glass, Image worked across a variety of media, including book design, and was a leading figure in the British Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau movements. He was a member of the Rhymer’s Club, co-founded in 1890 by Yeats, which also counted among its membership the poet Ernest Radford. Both Yeats and Radford at this time were published by Unwin, and Radford’s volume Old and New appeared in 1895 with cover design and decorated title page by Image – see il- lustrations on page 735. Comparison of these with the Poppies cover design confirms a close similarity of style. In a letter to Unwin of 29 April 1895 3 , Image apologises for forgetting to sign his work and thanks Unwin for giving him acknowledgment in the preliminary pages of the book. I think we can conclude he forgot to sign also in the case of Poppies – but Unwin (inconveniently for us) omitted in this case to make the acknowledgment. The titles in the Poppies series are as follows (listed in the order 3 . Letter from Selwyn Image to Unwin in Container 1.6 of the T. Fisher Unwin Collection, Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin
736
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