IN
Randolph Caldecott (1846-86) was born in Chester, England, the son
of a hatter. While still a child he showed his talent for drawing,
modelling and carving, but he started his working life as a bank
clerk before going to the Manchester School of Art at the age of
twenty-one. He moved to London in search of commissions and
produced drawings and cartoons for newspapers and journals before
his first success with a set of one hundred and twenty drawings for
Washington Irving's Old Christmas in 1876. It was his idea
to produce a series of 'Toy Books' (picture books of a uniform size
printed in colour), and this became the subject of the famous
collaboration between the artist and the printer/engraver Edmund
Evans. The first two - The House that Jack Built and The
Diverting History of John Gilpin - were published in time for
Christmas 1878 and the first printing of 10,000 copies sold out
quickly. 'The very essence of all illustration for children's
books', said The Times on Christmas Eve.
During the next seven years, Caldecott produced fourteen more Toy
Books, illustrating nursery rhymes and songs with the interpretive
skill that makes him such an important figure in the British
picturebook tradition. He died, comparatively young, in St.
Augustine, Florida.
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