Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale's Golden Book of Famous Women (1919)

Illustrated by Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale

 

 

To the left, we show a rare example of the 1st Edition of

Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale's Golden Book of Famous Women

carrying the illustrations of Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale. That

Edition was published by Hodder & Stoughton (London) in 1919.

 

This copy retains the original gold-stamped decorated

turquoise cloth cover.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the right, we show the Title Page to this Edition of

Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale's Golden Book of Famous Women.

 

Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale's Golden Book of Famous Women (1919) is a compilation of stories about some of the most

famous women in history and fable, including: Helen of Troy; Cleopatra; Dalila; Eloise; Joan of Arc; Queen Katherine;

Una; and Titania. The tales are drawn from authors including: Dante Alighieri; William Shakespeare; Lord Byron;

Lord Tennyson; Charles Dickens; Edgar Allan Poe; John Keats; William Wordsworth; Samual Taylor Coleridge;

Thomas Hood; Sir Walter Scott; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Edmund Spenser; Christopher Marlowe; and

Alexander Pope.

 

The illustrations prepared by Fortescue-Brickdale to accompany the tales are wonderful examples of her particular

style and complement the selected text in a most sympathetic manner.

 

 

Our Greeting Cards

 

 

For connoisseurs of the art of Eleanor Forescue-Brickdale, we have prepared sets of 16 Greeting Cards displaying each of her major colour images for Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale's Golden Book of Famous Women and on the left, we show an example of how these Greeting Cards appear.

 

 

 

 

 

Code: EFB EFBGBFW CS(16)
Price: US$80.00

 

When presented on Greeting Cards, these images are prepared as tipped-on plates - in hommage to the hand-crafted

approach typical of prestige illustrated publications produced in the early decades of the 20th Century. Each card is

hand-finished and the images are presented on Ivory card stock with an accompanying envelope. The rear of each

card carries information about Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale, this wonderful suite and the profiled illustration - we have

left the interior of the cards blank so that you may write your own personal message.

 

To purchase, simply click on the appropriate "Add to Cart" button and you will be taken through to our Shopping Cart

secured through PayPal. Multiple purchases will be consolidated by that feature and shipping and handling costs to any

destination in the world are accommodated by our flat-rate fee of US$20 for every US$200 worth of purchases.

 

Of course, should you wish to discuss some customised options, we welcome your contact on any matter through

ThePeople@SpiritoftheAges.com.

 

In the meantime, enjoy perusing these wonderful images from Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale.

 

 

The colour illustrations

 

Olivia

The Vicar of Wakefield

(Oliver Goldsmith)

What Olivia really felt gave me some

uneasiness. In this struggle between

prudence and passion her vivacity quite

forsook her.

 

 

Eloisa and Abelard

Eloisa to Abelard

(Alexander Pope)

From lips like those what precept fail'd to move?

Too soon they taught me 'twas no sin to love.

Fair Rosamond

Fair Rosamond

(Thomas Delone)

Most curiously that bower was built ...

With turning round about,

That none but the clue of thread

Could enter in or out.

Dante and Beatrice First Meeting

Purgatorio

(Dante Alighieri)

On my vision smote the power

Sublime, that had already pierced me through

Ere from my boyhood I had yet come forth.
       

Petrarch

Petrarch and Laura at Avignon

(Leigh Hunt)

How often then I said,

Inward and filled with dread,

"Doubtless this creature came from Paradise!"

 

 

Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc

(Robert Southey)

I have heard

Strange voices in the evening wind; strange forms,

Dimly discovered, thronged the twilight air.

Queen Katherine

King Henry VIII

(William Shakespeare)

Although unqueened, yet like

A Queen, and daughter to a king.

The Queen's Marie

The Queen's Marie

(Anonymous)

Yestreen the queen had four Maries,

The night she'll hae but three;

There was Marie Seaton, and Marie Beaton,

And Marie Carmichael, and me.

 

 
       

Una and the Red Cross Knight

Edmund Spenser

(The Faerie Queen)

A lovely lady rode him fair beside

Upon a lowly ass more white than snow.

 

 

Bottom and Titania

A Midsummer-Night's Dream

(William Shakespeare)

TITANIA: Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed,

While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,

And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head.

 

 

Rosalind and Celia

As You Like It

(William Shakespeare)

ROSALIND: Never talk to me: I will weep.

CELIA: Do, I pr-ythee; but yet have the grace to

consider that tears do not become a man ... Who

comes here?

 

 

Guinevere

Guinevere

(Lord Alfred Tennyson)

Her memory from old habit of the mind

Went slipping back upon the golden days

In which she saw him first, when Launcelot came.

 

 
       

Maud is not Seventeen

Maud

(Lord Alfred Tennyson)

Maud is not seventeen,

But she is tall and stately.

 

 

Kate Barlass

The King's Tragedy

(Dante Gabriel Rossetti)

And now the rush was heard on the stair,

And 'God What help!' was our cry,

And was I frenzied or was I bold?

I looked at each empty stanchion-hold,

And no bar but my arm had I.

 

 

St Catherine

St Catherine of Sienna, negotiating with

Pope Gregory XI on behalf of the Florentines.

St Clare

St Clare in the garden of one of the

Monasteries she founded after she had

given her fortune to the poor.