Behold Harry Clarke’s Hallucinatory Illustrations for Edgar Allan Poe’s Tale Assortment, Stories of Thriller and Creativeness (1923)

As you’ve prob­a­bly spotted in case you’re a reg­u­lar learn­er of this website, we’re giant fanatics of ebook illus­tra­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly that from the shape’s gold­en age—the overdue 18th and nineteenth century—prior to pho­tog­ra­phy took over because the dom­i­nant visu­al medi­um. However whilst pho­tographs huge­ly sup­plant­ed illus­tra­tions in textual content­books, magazine­a­zines, and information­pa­pers over the process the twentieth cen­tu­ry, works of fic­tion, which were rou­tine­ly pub­lished in lav­ish­ly illus­trat­ed edi­tions, sud­den­ly was the fea­ture­much less banks of phrases we all know nowadays. Regardless that image-heavy graph­ic nov­els and com­ic books have thrived in fresh a long time, the illus­trat­ed lit­er­ary textual content is a rar­i­ty certainly.

Why did this alteration come about? “I actual­ly don’t know,” writes Christo­pher Howse at The Tele­graph, however he issues out that the technology of illus­trat­ed fic­tion for grown-ups finish­ed “after the dying of the large Vic­to­ri­an nov­el­ists,” like Dick­ens and Trol­lope. Prior to grownup pic­ture-books went out of fashion, sev­er­al now-famous artists made careers as ebook illus­tra­tors. After we recall to mind the large names from the peri­od, we recall to mind Aubrey Beard­s­ley and Gus­tave Doré, either one of whom we’ve cov­ered heav­i­ly right here. We generally tend now not to think about Irish artist Har­ry Clarke—a rel­a­tive latecomer—however we will have to. Of the various incred­i­ble illus­tra­tions from noted works of lit­er­a­ture we’ve fea­tured right here, my favourite could be Clarke’s 1926 illus­tra­tions of Goethe’s Faust.

So out-there are a few of his illus­tra­tions, so pride­ful­ly evening­mar­ish and bizarre, one is tempt­ed to fall again on that fairly sopho­moric expla­na­tion for artwork we discover dis­turb­ing: perhaps he was once on medication! No longer that he’d want them to con­jure up most of the photographs he did. His supply mate­r­i­al is unusual sufficient (perhaps Goethe was once on medication!). After all, we will def­i­nite­ly name Clarke’s paintings hal­lu­ci­na­to­ry, and that is going for his ear­li­er, 1923 illus­tra­tions of Edgar Allan Poe’s Stories of Mys­tery and Imag­i­na­tion as neatly, of which you’ll see a couple of selection examination­ples right here.

Dublin-born Clarke labored as a stained-glass artist in addition to an illus­tra­tor, and drew his inspi­ra­tion from the ear­li­er artwork nou­veau aes­thet­ic of Beard­s­ley and oth­ers, including his personal roco­co flour­ish­es to the elon­gat­ed paperwork and dec­o­ra­tive pat­terns preferred by means of the ones artists. His glow­er­ing figures—together with person who appears to be like rather somewhat like Poe him­self, on the best—go well with the fever­ish inten­si­ty of Poe’s international to consistent with­fec­tion. And prefer Poe, Clarke’s artwork gen­er­al­ly thrived in a seduc­tive­ly darkish underneath­international stuffed with ghouls and fiends. Either one of those professional­to-goths died younger, Poe underneath mys­te­ri­ous cir­cum­stances at age 40, Clarke of tuber­cu­lo­sis at 42.

Clarke’s illus­trat­ed edi­tion of Poe con­tained 8 full-col­or plates and 24 black and white illus­tra­tions. The Irish artist additionally significantly illus­trat­ed edi­tions of the fairy stories of Hans Chris­t­ian Ander­sen and Charles In step with­rault, with photographs that—as you could believe—are like­ly to ter­ri­fy some sen­si­tive chil­dren. You’ll pur­chase your personal edi­tion of the Clarke-illus­trat­ed Poe right here, re-released in 2008 by means of Calla Press. And to peer all 24 of Clarke’s black and white plates, head over to 50 Watts.

Notice: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this put up gave the impression on our website in 2016.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Gus­tave Doré’s Macabre Illus­tra­tions of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” (1884)

Aubrey Beardsley’s Macabre Illus­tra­tions of Edgar Allan Poe’s Brief Sto­ries (1894)

Édouard Manet Illus­trates Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven, in a French Edi­tion Trans­lat­ed by means of Stephane Mal­lar­mé (1875)

Har­ry Clarke’s 1926 Illus­tra­tions of Goethe’s Faust: Artwork That Impressed the Psy­che­del­ic 60s

Oscar Wilde’s Play Salome Illus­trat­ed by means of Aubrey Beard­s­ley in a Strik­ing Mod­ern Aes­thet­ic (1894)

Josh Jones is a author and musi­cian based totally in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness