Harry+Rowntree

Harry Rountree came to London from New Zealand in 1901. He was 23 years old and determined to make his mark on the then-flourishing magazine and book market. He didn't. For two years he struggled, studied and sold the occasional spot drawing. It wasn't until the editor of Little Folks magazine gave him a commission to illustrate a story with an animal that he found his calling. Suddenly he could do no wrong. By 1903 he was illustrating books for the editor of Little Folks, writing and illustrating his own books, and in demand by nearly every publisher in London. One of the earliest I've seen is Fairy Tales by Dumas from 1904 (see image at right), where his inspiration seems clearly from W. Heath Robinson.

Animals, animals, animals. Books, magazines, annuals. From 1903 to 1942, Rountree's pens and brushes gave life to every species from dormice to dinosaurs. His 1908 Alice in Wonderland, with 90+ color plates, is considered to be both his masterpiece and one of the definitive versions of the Carroll classic. He returned to the tale later in his career and the mouse above is one of many endearing images he created (this from The Collins Clear-Type Press c1925 edition).

He produced the coloured plates from the Ward, Lock edition of Aesop's Fables, a book he was destined to illustrate. One book that should have been, but never came about, was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World. When the story was first published in The Strand magazine as a serial in 1912, Rountree was called upon to illustrate the installments. In the U.S., the task was given to Joseph Clement Coll (for The Sunday Magazine). Coll's illustrations graced the book and Rountree's have languished in literary limbo.

A recent book by Roy Pilot and Alvin Rodin, The Annotated Lost World (1996 Wessex Press) have resurrected Rountree's illustrations for posterity.