Dugald Walker Collection at Spirit of the Ages

Dugald Walker Collection

Throughout the page that follows, we have presented vintage images from the American artist, Dugald Walker. Those

illustrations are drawn from his contributions to Stories for Pictures, Fairy Tales from Hans Christian Andersen, Dream

Boats and Other Stories, Rainbow Gold, Snythergen, Squiffer and Orpheus with his Lute.

We have developed a range of Giftware that includes images reproduced from the 1st Edition plates in our collection

to ensure the most accurate form, line and colour possible. We have utilised a high definition capture and reproduction

technique for the images - in contrast to the low definition representation necessary for this website. The illustrations are

available as cards, infants' clothing, T-shirts and unmatted, matted or framed prints (8x6", 10x8", 12x10", 15x10" and

30 x 20" images sizes). Pricing starts at US$4 for single Gift Cards (US$18 for select packs of 6) and 10 x 8" prints

(double-matted and framed) begin at US$60. Further details on those reproduction images are available at the

Giftware section of this site.

Details on purchasing also appear towards the end of the page, but should you wish to discuss an order, please contact

us at ThePeople@SpiritoftheAges.com referencing your request with the Stock Code of the plate, or plates in question

and a brief description (and rest assured, we do accept payment through PayPal or Direct Bank Deposit).

In the meantime, enjoy browsing our selection of genuine vintage and antique plates.

The Artwork of Dugald Walker

Dugald Walker (1865-1937) was an American painter noted for his lyrical depiction of scenes and human form influenced

by Art Nouveau and Impressionism.

His contributions to illustrated books began with Stories for Pictures published in 1912. Further contributions followed, in the

form of his illustrations for Fairy Tales from Hans Christian Andersen (1914), Dream Boats and Other Stories (1918), Rainbow

Gold (1922), Snythergen (1923), Squiffer (1924) and Orpheus with his Lute (1926).

Stories for Pictures (1912)

To the left is shown a rare copy of Stories for Pictures, as illustrated by Dugald Walker with his own accompanying illustrations - as published by Duffield and Company

(New York) in 1912.

On the right is the Title Page designed by Walker.

This copy shows the original decoratively gilt-, white- and green-stamped cream cloth cover.

Stories for Pictures introduced the World to the illustrated books of Dugald Walker. The precis on the rare Dust Jacket

for this title describes Walker's work and its relationship with the words of Mackay:

Poems in color by Dugald Stewart Walker, a new artist of remarkable talent, suggesting Rackham

and Dulac but entirely original in spirit and execution. A sympathetic accompaniment of stories is

supplied by the author of "Houses of Glass," "Half Loaves" and "The Cobweb Cloak," and the

combination is a volume of very rare charm and distinction - a literary and artistic "discover" that

is sure to be one of the acknowledged successes of the 1912 holiday season.

Many wonderful images

End Papers

Half-Title Page

Monotone illustration

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW SP 1

Monotone illustration

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW SP 2

Monotone illustration

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW SP 3

Frontispiece

Half-Title Page

Pierrot

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW SP 4

Monotone illustration

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW SP 5

Fairy Tales from Hans Christian Andersen (1914)

To the left is shown a rare copy of Fairy Tales from Hans

Christian Andersen, an anthology of poems selected by

Dugald Walker with his own accompanying illustrations -

as published by Doubleday, Page & Company (New York)

in 1914.

On the right is the wonderfully decorative Title Page

This copy shows the original decoratively gilt-stamped

green cloth cover and illustrated paste-down.

Fairy Tales from Hans Christian Andersen is a rare creature, in that the illustrator, Dugald Walker, contributed significantly to creating

the anthology and illustrating Andersen's class tales.

In doing so, he approached the subject matter in a wonderfully magical way, ably demonstrated through his Dedication:

I have never been anywhere except Richmond, Virginian, and New York, because I have

always been told that only grown-up people wee allowed to travel. But the good East Wind

and the kindly Moon have taken me on rapturous journeys high above the world to get an

enchanted view of things. In this book I have put some of my discoveries, but if you are

looking here for real likeness of the things that any one could see if he were grown up, you

had better close the covers now. You cannot expect me to draw an exact picture of the

North Pole or of a Chinese lady's feet or of a sea-cucumber. But if you are interested in what

the East Wind or the Father Stork or the Moon told me, then look with my eyes and you

will not mind very much if the courtiers in the ogre's court, or the dock leaves in the Garden

of Paradise, are not just as a grown-up person thinks they should be. After all is said and done,

what the young ones say about it is the all-important matter.

The images contributed by Walker to Fairy Tales from Hans Christian Andersen are considered a suite that may rightly be described as

his masterpiece. Throughout the wonderful images that follow is shown Walker's own notes in respect of certain illustrations - they

make marvelous reading.

Many wonderful images

End Papers		Title Page

Multitone illustration Provenance: An American Collector Code: DW AFT 1	Multitone illustration Provenance: An American Collector Code: DW AFT 2	Monotone illustration Provenance: An American Collector Code: DW AFT 3
Fairy children are never bad until their second teeth come; and no one knows they are bad then except their mother. She thinks it is very pretty, but of course she pretends she doesn't. If she had a corner she would stand them in it, but as she hasn't, she takes her naughty child's chin in her hand, very gently, and she says: "Child, you have lost your nose. Go look for it at one. And if you don't stick your finger in the hole where your nose used to be before you find it, never think; for if they did they would see they could not use a pot of gold if they found one. So before they stop to think, off sails each naughty fairy up into the air to look for its nose with its hands for oars, so that it can't stick its fingers into the hole where its nose used to be. And fanning its wings, it sails straight up into the air, and on still wings drifts down again - and up and down again it sails, looking all over the sky for its nose, which is another proof that it doesn't think for what, pray, should its nose be doing there? Until by and by it forgets all about the pot of gold and forgets it is using its hands for oars. And then! Well, of course you know what it does at once. Just what you did with your tongue when you lost your tooth.

The Mermaid

"The Mermaid" title illustration

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW RG 4

She would have nothing besides the rosy flowers like the

sun up above, except a statue of a beautiful boy

(Frontispiece)

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW RG 5

She held his head above the water and let the waves

drive them whithersoever they would

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The she saw her sisters rise from the water,

they were as pale as she was

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"The Mermaid" closing illustration

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The Flying Trunk

"The Flying Trunk" title illustration

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Code: DW RG 9

And he told her all about the storks, which bring

beautiful children up out of the river

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"I saw the prophet myself ... his eyes were like shining

stars, and his beard like foaming water"

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW RG 11

The Merchant's son told the king's daughter about the storks which bring little children up out of the river. But, of course, they weren't in the river in the first place. They come from away up behind the stars, where the Spring comes from. And up there, sits One (I can't remember much about her, only that she made me think of a dewdrop - not such a dewdrop as you and I can see, but a dewdrop if it were as large as the whole world) and all the children are in her lap. And each one has a little harness made of ribbon. And there are faun babies, and fairy babies, and human babies. The faun's harness is purple like grapes, and the fairies' is silver like bubbles in moonlight, and the human babies' is just pink and blue; and that's how the stork knows which is which. Now, the storks fly up there (it's wonderful, the distance storks can fly) and each one takes a baby in his beak by the loop at the top of the harness. But before they start, the One who is like a dewdrop would be if it were as large as the whole world, gives to each baby a dandelion. And she says, "When you reach the lowest circle of stars this dandelion will have gone to see. Then you must blow on it and see what time you will be born." So when they come to the lowest circle of stars, puff! puff! blow all the babies on the dandelions which have gone to seed, to see when they will be born. But the down of the dandelion sometimes gets into the storks eyes, and as they haven't any memory to speak of, the make sad mistakes in the places they leave the babies. Sometimes fairies are left with human beings, and sometimes even fauns - though of that I am not quite sure.

She stood still on the roof waiting for him; she is

waiting for him still, but he wanders around the world

telling stories

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW RG 12

"The Flying Trunk" closing illustration

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The Red Shoes

"The Red Shoes" title illustration

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She wanted to sit down on a pauper's grave

where the bitter wormwood grew

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"You can't know who I am? I chop the bad people's

heads off, and I see that my axe is quivering"

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"Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,

Bless the bed that I lie on."

There was a bed with four posts and a boy named Robin slept in it. Long ago he grew too big to sleep in that bed. And since the new bed he slept in had no posts, he thought there were no saints. But some kind of saints every one must have, of course. And one day he saw a glass bowl with four goldfish and he took it home and put it by his new bed, and he called the goldfish Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. But he did not think that he was calling them after the saints, only after the four posts he was used to in his old bed. One Spring day this grown up boy's four goldfish died. Many years afterward, as I sat and painted the picture of the angel who came to take little Karen to heaven - the angel who touched the air with a green branch and filled it everywhere with stars - this Robin said to me: "Oh, little Karen's bed is like my old one with the four posts, Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John. Have your angel put a gold halo around each post in memory of my four fish."

Her soul flew with the sunshine to heaven and no

one there asked about the red shoes

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW RG 17

"The Red Shoes" closing illustration

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW RG 18

Thumbelisa

"Thumbelisa" title illustration

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Code: DW RG 19

She was so happy now, because the toad could not reach

her and she was sailing through such lovely scenes

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Code: DW RG 20

"For he that has his own world,

How many worlds more."

A boy called Robin once upon a time asked me to tell him all I knew of the fairies and I told him all I had learned from them. Then he asked: "How did the angel of the flower in this picture get the lovely blue spots that are on his legs and wings?" I showed him a cornflower growing out of a zigzag crack in a garden path that was spotted with sunshine as it came sifting through the branches of a cedar tree. In the tree many birds slept at night. One night six seeds of a cornflower were dropped by a goldfinch out of this tree as he was eating them. The fairy was sleeping under the cedar tree and they fell upon his wings and legs. Just then his mother came along and saw them. Admiring the effect, she whipped out her needle and thread and sewed them on at once so that he might wear them all the time.

"You shall not be called Thumbelisa, that is such an ugly

name, and you are so pretty. We will call you May"

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW RG 21

"Thumbelisa" closing illustration

Provenance: An American Collector

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The Girl who trod on a Loaf

"The Girl who trod on a Loaf" title illustration

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW RG 23

Tears of sorrow shed by a mother for her child will

always reach it; but they do not bring healing, they

burn and make the torment fifty times worse

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW RG 24

The Nightingale

"The Nightingale" title illustration

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Code: DW RG 25

"Heavens, how beautiful it is!" he said, but then he

had to attend to his business and forgot it

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Code: DW RG 26

"Little nightingale!" called the kitchen maid quite loud,

"our gracious emperor wishes you to sing to him!"

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"The Nightingale" closing illustration

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Code: DW RG 28

The Garden of Paradise

"The Garden of Paradise" title illustration

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Code: DW RG 29

The eagle in the great forest flew swiftly, but the

Eastwind flew more swiftly still

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Code: DW RG 30

The Fairy of the Garden now advanced to meet them;

her garments shone like the sun, and her face beamed

like that of a happy mother

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Code: DW RG 31

There she lay asleep already, beautiful as only the

Fairy in the Garden of Paradise can be

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Code: DW RG 32

The Wind's Tale

"The Wind's Tale" title illustration

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Code: DW RG 33

She was always picking flowers and herbs, those she

knew her father could use for healing drinks

and potions

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"The Wind's Tale" closing illustration

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW RG 35

The Snow Queen

"The Snow Queen" title illustration

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW RG 36

"Look! the white bees are swarming"

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Code: DW RG 37

The biggest snowflake became the figure of a woman.

She was delicately lovely, but all ice, glittering,

dazzling ice

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW RG 38

On the river that flows by the little thatched house the fairies have water-lilies growing under the branches of the cherry trees that hand out over the water. The lily-pads catch the cherries that would otherwise fall and be lost. For cherries are the most delightful food for fairies, and all other irresponsible creatures. When those fairies that are transparent have eaten cherries, their stomachs get red outside as well as in. Then they tilt their noses higher than it is safe for human beings to tilt theirs, because they have weights in their heels. When they have stuffed themselves as round as marbles, they say, "Cherries are good for the wholesome." No one but a fairy knows where this organ is located, and I fancy they only pretend they have one, to excuse their greediness.

An old, old woman came out of the house ... she wore

a big sun hat which was covered with beautiful

painted flowers

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW RG 39

She then said that she was sitting "The Mirror of Reason,"

and that is was the best and only one in the world

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Code: DW RG 40

"The Snow Queen" closing illustration

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Code: DW RG 41

What the Moon Saw

"What the Moon Saw" title illustration

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Code: DW RG 42

If the public had seen their favourite how they

would have shouted "Bravo! Bravissimo! Punchinello"

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Code: DW RG 43

Her thoughts wandered from her home and sought

the Temple, but not for the sake of God! Poor Pé!

Poor Soui-houng!

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW RG 44

Fairies saw: "To play that you are doing something is as nice as doing it." The have a play called L'Envoi, that is quite the nicest of all plays; that is, if you are a fairy. One has a flower whose blooms hang from the stalk like little bells, the others follow in a line that flutters from one side to the other. The leader holds her flower high and calls, "L'Envoi! L'Envoi! L'Envoi!" And which ever side she dips the little bells in, the fairies march in that direction. After the have marched several inches, they lie down and quickly jump up again. Then the leader goes to the end of the line, and the next one becomes leader, then the third, then the fourth, and so on until each fairy has been the leader once. It sounds very stupid, but if you are a fairy, it is the most delightful play in the whole world. If only human beings weren't so dignified, there are many delightful things they could learn from the fairies. L'Envoi. L'Envoi!

"What the Moon Saw" closing illustration

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW RG 45

The Marsh King's Daughter

"The Marsh King's Daughter" title illustration

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW RG 46

She who is related to the fairies!

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW RG 47

This is a picture of father stork hastening to tell Mrs. Stork the upsetting scandal. Look closely and you will see fairies sleeping on the waterlily-pads. They never sleep except when they have danced their hands hot - which is very seldom. Then, with a little wince, they stick their hands under a frog's stomach to keep them cool, just as on cold winter nights we stick our hands under the pillows to keep them warm.

"You shouldn't even tell me anything of the sort

just now, it might have a bad effect upon

the eggs"

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW RG 48

The dragon who posed for this picture had no name; the wiggly thing that grows on his back from his head to his tail is his comb. It wiggled so while he was posing that the fairies discovered that it would make a delightful doormat. If one stood on it only for a second it wiggled all the mud off his feet and so they gave him a name. It was Diplo-door-mat. He rather like this name, for all his life he had been called just Dragon, which made him feel as though he were in the insurance business and sat on a high stool and wrote in a big book all day.

The great dragon, hoarding his treasures,

raised his head to look at them

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW RG 49

"The Day-spring from on high hath visited us. To

give light to them that sit in darkness, and to guide

their feet into the way of peace"

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW RG 50

"The Marsh King's Daughter" closing illustration

Provenance: An American Collector

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The Travelling Companions

"The Travelling Companions" title illustration

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW RG 52

Great spiders spun their webs from branch to branch ...

and the fairies swung hand in hand upon the big

dewdrops which covered the leaves and the long grass

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Code: DW RG 53

Oh, what a flight that was through the air; the wind

caught her cloak, and the moon shone through it

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Code: DW RG 54

Instead of second teeth the birds get second feathers, and because they are friends with the fairies they can feather oftener than we can get new teeth. When the feathering time comes the birds have no grown-ups to tie strings to their feathers and pull them out, as they do our teeth, so the fairies pull those that are stubborn and will not fall out. Here stands a gay and debonair creature who pulled the stubborn feathers from the peacock's tail. He left one feather which forms a magi circle. This is a wish of good fortune from the fairies to you. This creature is not conceited, though he looks so. He belongs to the tribe of fairies who eat worms and has just eaten two. That is what gives his stomach its arrogant tilt, and it is in utter defiance of no one at all that he says airily: "The book is finished. I don't care; I'll do another!"

The courtiers looked most grand and proper ...

Numbers of tiny little elves danced around

the hall

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW RG 55

"The Travelling Companions" closing illustration

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW RG 56

Dream Boats and Other Stories (1918)

To the left is shown a rare copy of Dream Boats and

Other Stories, a wonderful work written and illustrated

by Dugald Walker - as published by Doubleday,

Page & Company (New York) in 1918.

On the right is the wonderfully decorative Title Page

This copy shows the original decoratively blue-stamped

blue cloth cover.

Dream Boats and Other Stories is a collection of some of the literary work of Dugald Walker, including fantasy histories of

fauns, fishes, fairies and other pleasant creatures. One lovely element of the book is the final portion, a play written by Walker,

"Dream Boats".

Walker provides his own introduction to Dream Boats and Other Stories in his Foreward, entitled, "The Sunlit Sea":

There is a far-away blue sea of unending wonder and belief. A fragile craft is launched from a

Mother's arms, upon its waters. You are the helmsman of the vessel and you are the guardian.

Safely through tempests and gales and over stretches of Sunlit waters you must pilot the ship.

The path is strewn with icebergs, wreckage and many boats making for the same harbour. All

the little ships make their trial voyage through the white-capped, dancing waves of "Let's Play"

and "Let's Pretend".

Back into the bay of youth, where lies the haven of a Mother's arms, each little vessel will

drift if the pilot does not stupidly keep his wheel turned to the point on the compass the reads

Grow-up-South by As-far-as-you-can-East. The craft laden with a cargo, that is your heart, will

surely return to the pleasant waters of youth unless you are grown up so high you cannot

become as a little child.

If you wish, and wish with all your heart, you can come to join us in our play, which in honour

of the waves of "Let's Pretend", through which I hope your little craft has passed, I have called

"Dream Boats".

Walker's accompanying illustrations - in colour, multitone and monotone - are breathtaking. It is superb work that, true

to the author and illustrator's wishes, will delight children of all ages.

24 images in full colour, multitone and monotone

End Papers

Dream Boats

Multitone illustration

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW DB 1

Multitone illustration

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW DB 2

She tied my boat to the North Star so I would not

grow up while she was gone

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW DB 3

Dedication Page

Storks

Pollen People

Monotone illustration

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW DB 4

Up there, sits One - I can't remember

much about her

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW DB 5

In the commonplace corners of the earth

there may be a pair of pollen lovers

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW DB 6

Second Teeth

The Grandmother Bush

Butterfly's Nightmare

And pipe the little songs that are inside of bubbles

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Code: DW DB 7

Why it rains to-morrow

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW DB 8

Lest a nightmare should come to the fairies'

cousin twice removed on their mother's side

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Code: DW DB 9

The Reluctant Mirrors!

Giving Thanks

Snakedoctor

Perhaps being so shiny they were mistaken

by the fairies for mirrors

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW DB 10

The oak finds happiness in providing a refreshing

drink for migrating fairies

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW DB 11

An anodyne for swooning fairy ladies is to be

carried past cardinal birds singing on a

wistaria vine

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW DB 12

Warfare

Stay-at-home Heart

The Comet's Tail

The Mobilization of the Fairy Army

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW DB 13

The sea-green bird sank so low that the foam

of the waves dashed against its breast

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW DB 14

Calling it a tail did not make it one

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW DB 15

The Daughter of the Comet King

One of the Common Decencies of

Ordinary Social Intercourse

The Magic Dewdrop

Comet ladies drift dreamingly across the sky

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW DB 16

One of the Common Decencies of

Ordinary Social Intercourse

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW DB 17

What was his amazement to find that the

fountain was flowing over a maiden

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW DB 18

Cold Porridge

On June Winds

Snapdragons

The little boy kissed the spot and

made it all well

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW DB 19

A fragile craft, piloted by a fairy,

perched like a star

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW DB 20

It is watering time for the thirsting flock

of pink and yellow dragons

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW DB 21

Sweet April

Autumn's Colour

Closing Illustration

When buds are breaking and birds singing

merrily, dance with me

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW DB 22

Whence do the elves of the autumn get all the

colour they need with which to paint the flowers,

fruits and foliage?

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW DB 23

Untitled colour image

Provenance: An American Collector

Code: DW DB 24

Rainbow Gold (1922)