William+Heath+Robinson+(1872-1944)

Destined to have his name become a dictionary entry, William Heath Robinson was born in London, the youngest of three artistic brothers. He forsook early unsaleable attempts at painting, encouraged by his brothers' success to take up illustration. Uncle Lubin, his own juvenile fantasy, provided his first vehicle for surrealistic experiment. Needing a steady 'bread and butter' line to finance his marriage, Heath undertook commercial drawing, producing extravagant fantasies which marked a new departure in advertising. His involved contrivances, preposterous in conception, yet faultlessly logical in operation, amazed professional engineers. As a debunker of machine worship, his name became a byword for mechanical absurdity. During the First World War Robinson militarized his contraptions and caricatures. International acclaim threatened to engulf more serious opportunities; publishers were shocked at his long-held ambition to illustrate the life of Christ. A shy, preoccupied man, he worked intently, with feet wrapped around table legs and, according to friends, he was in constant danger from London traffic. In spite of his retiring disposition he was persuaded to undertake public appearances and broadcasting. He designed an exhibition home fitted with myriad gadgets. In collaboration with Kenneth R. G. Browne (son of artist Gordon and grandson of Dickens's illustrator, Hablot or `Phiz'), Heath did a series of humorous 'how to — ' handbooks. As a literary interpreter he showed an astonishing versatility, equally adept at capturing the macabre of Edgar Allan Poe, the buffoonery and ribaldry of Rabelais, and the delicacy, enchantment and whimsy of fairy tales. While in no way derivative, he adapted ideas from Beardsley and Sime as well as Crane, Greenaway and Rackham. Perrault's Old-Time Stories was his first major book commission after the war. He used modulated lighting, picked out with color points in beads, flowers, water, etc., in drawings which enrich rather than merely re-echo the theme. H. G. Wells counted Heath Robinson 'a joy in life' and Sir Kenneth Clark compared his ingenuity to that of Leonardo da Vinci.

They reached the house where the light was burning
Old Time Stories DODD, MEAD & CO 1921