Illustrious Illustrator

Recently I received the pleasant surprise of a belated birthday gift from my grandaughters. Presents are like little babies. They are always welcome whether they are on time, premature or belated. This little cutie was "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" by Lewis Carrol. Naturally, the story is captivating, irrespective of the number of times one has read it, and this edition is elevated further by its special presentation. The pages are subtly tinted to give the book an antique feeling, while the printing is light and spacious. The thickness of the pages encourages the reader to enjoy touching them. The crowning achievement is the flow of illustrations that adorn the majority of the pages. The illustrator is Australian Robert Ingpen ( a delightful surname) who always manages to find a fresh approach to stories that have been illustrated so many times before. His artistry and presentation captures the mood of the story, with each picture carrying a world of symbolism.

As may be noticed by the very perceptive, I am a great fan of Ingpen's work and, with the help of my delightful family, I have been collecting them for several years. Altogether he has designed and illustrated over 100 books, a few of which I have in my collection. The ones I am most enraptured with are in a series of "Classic" children's stories by famous authors. He produces a book a year in this series and each new presentation creates an immediate impatient desire for his next one.

So far I have Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, 2005
The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling, 2006
The Wind In The Willows by Kenneth Grahame; Centenary Edition, 2007
A Christmas Carol by my old friend Charles Dickens, 2008
and my new Alice's Adventures ... by Lewis Carrol, 2009.

Somewhere along the way I missed "Peter Pan and Wendy"; "Pinnochio" and "Around The world in Eighty Days". That gives me some goals when I browse second-hand shops. I have two other books with his illustrations; "Australian Gnomes" and " The Rare Bear", so there are only another 90 or so to find.

Robert Ingpen has a well-deserved prominent position in my Literary Hall of Fame.