Fairyland

By Ida Rentoul Outhwaite, Grenbry Outhwaite and Annie R. Rentoul

A highly sought-after collectible, Fairyland features the exquisite illustrations of Ida Rentoul Outhwaite, a noted artist of the early 20th century. Outhwaite excelled at the depiction of dainty sprites, and her whimsical visions are highlighted by images of kangaroos, koalas, kookaburras, and other creatures of her native Australia. Her art — with accompanying verses by her sister, Annie R. Rentoul, and stories by her husband, Grenbry Outhwaite — is populated by princesses, witches, pixies, and other folkloric creatures and abounds in timeless charm. This hardcover edition of Outhwaite's most lavish work features dozens of graceful and imaginative illustrations, including nineteen in full color.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Release date: Apr 20, 2016
• ISBN: 9781606601075

Book preview

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Ida Rentoul Outhwaite was born in 1888. Greatly encouraged by a gifted literary and artistic family to develop her talents, she first published her art at the age of fifteen when The New Idea magazine included six fairy stories written by her sister Annie and illustrated by Ida. The sisters’ collaboration Mollie’s Bunyip was published the following year in 1904.

In December of 1909, Ida married Arthur Grenbry Outhwaite, a successful businessman thirteen years her senior. He was very supportive of her talent and commissioned a studio for her to be built in the garden of their new home in Melbourne. Her production declined somewhat during the next few years, as the Outhwaite’s welcomed four children to their family. In 1916, Elves and Fairies, Outhwaite’s first book containing her signature color work was released. The book was a great success, not only in Australia, but in England and Europe as well. The Enchanted Forest (1921), The Little Green Road to Fairyland (1922), and The Little Fairy Sister (1923) followed.

Fairyland, with text by her husband and sister, was planned as the successor to Elves and Fairies and was to be her most sumptuous collection yet. It truly rose to the challenge. She created nineteen color plates and thirty-two black-and-white images that were evocative of Walter Crane and Kate Greenaway. However, the book was expensive for the time and the popularity of the lavishly-produced illustrated books typical of the Golden Age of Illustration was waning. In addition, Outhwaite had not changed her illustration style or greatly altered her subject matter regardless of the change in public taste so the book failed to find the same audience as her earlier work.

Outhwaite continued to illustrate fairy books and a comic strip in the Weekly Times from 1933 to 1939. After Grenbry’s death in 1938 she largely stopped her illustration work. Great sorrow followed Outhwaite as the war took both of her sons from her, the eldest in 1941 and the youngest in 1945. Once her daughters left home, she moved in with her sister Annie and passed away there on June 25, 1960.

Today, Ida Rentoul Outwaite’s works, including Fairyland, have rightly become sought-after collector’s items.

FAIRYLAND

FAIRYLAND

WHAT DO THE FAIRIES THINK OF US?

What do you think, ye beautiful things—

Two arms, two feet, two dazzling wings—

What do you think of lumbering man

And his clumsy ways, since the world began ?

J.L.R.

The Nightingale

Bibliographical Note

Fairyland, first published by Calla Editions in 2016, is an unabridged republication of the Authorized American Edition, published by Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York in 1929.

International Standard Book Number

ISBN-13: 978-1-60660-086-3

ISBN-10: 1-60660-086-9

CALLA EDITIONS

An Imprint of Dover Publications, Inc.

www.callaeditions.com

Printed in China by RR Donnelley

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to the memory of the Reverend Professor J. Laurence Rentoul, D.D., O.B.E., the Artist's father, who died just prior to publication.

CONTENTS

The literary work in this Volume, with the exception of the introductory verses and Serana, the Bush Fairy, is entirely written by Annie R. Rentoul.

W. S. Kent Hughes,

Associate Editor

The Gates of Fairyland

The Nightingale

The Peacock

Fairy Frolic

Good Advice

The Witch

The Lake

The Concert

The Princess and the Beggar Boy (A Short Story)

The Three Bears

The Grave of Love

The Fairy Ring

The Captain

The First Sorrow

The Crystal Gazer

Serana—The Bush Fairy (A Story)

Flower of the Foam

The Shingle in Fairyland

The Bird's Funeral

The Garden of Dreams

The Lost Playmate

The Rescue (A Short Story)

The Revoke

The Disputed Bath

Breath of Spring

The Wave

Coloured Plates are Shown in Italics

The Nightingale Frontispiece

The Peacock

Fairy Frolic

Good Advice

The Witch

The Lake

The Concert

Parlez-Vous

They Kissed Farewell at the Chateau Gate

The Old Witch Grippeminaude

The Three Bears

The Grave of Love

The Fairy Ring

The Captain

The First Sorrow

The Crystal Gazer

-And Wept Bitterly

Catching the Moon on a Rope of Dewdrops

Swung To and Fro on Ropes of Flowering Convolvulus

On Moonlight Nights They Danced

Serana Kissed the Limp, Fluffy Body

Tossing up the Rainbow Bubbles

Little Fairy Sisters

Led Her to a Nasty, Stagnant Pool

The Nautilus Fairy

The Old Man was Frightfully Ugly

The Glowlamp Fairy

The Moonboat Fairy

They Stood Still in Front of Her

'Don't Worry,' he said

Serana put up her Nose in the Air and Marched Past Him

While She Sat Chatting to a Kookaburra

The Dragon Fly Fairy

Knew that the Spark Sprite must be Flying

The Butterfly Ferry

A Tennis Tournament

Washed Their Gossamer Frocks in Dew

A Regatta

Serana's Greatest Friend was Bridesmaid

Serana!'s Wedding

Flower of the Foam

The Shingle in Fairyland

The Bird's Funeral

The Garden of Dreams

The Lost Playmate

They Led Her to an Open Glade

Bunny Boy Charged on the Bears

The Revoke

The Disputed Bath

Breath of Spring

The Wave

The Gates of Fairyland

O woodlands! O dreamlands!

O voice of yearning sea,

That sings its song on gleaming strands;

Whence comes your mystery?

And would that I had Shakespeare's wit,

Or Kreisler's mystic art,

That I might find the words that fit

The songs within my heart!

That I might tell some other soul

The thoughts which stir within,

And move me with the strange control

Of that charmed violin!

O hill and glen and babbling stream,

Amid a world of wrong,

Thanks to your sense-transcending dream,

And mystic glow and song!

I had two little daughters once,

Who roamed by brook and glen,

And found things never met with since

On ways of mortal men.

Ormond College, The University,

1926.

And by the trending ocean shore

Heard tones of such sweet sound,

As science-search with all its lore

Is helpless to expound.

O thanks for mystic pen and brush!

Here, in still hours of eve,

They come, convincing with the Hush!

Of Art's strange make-believe

O little folk of wood and hill,

When I am quite alone,

Ye steal and take me at your will

And claim me as your own.

And o'er these leaves I sit and dream,

'Mid tones and glow of Art,

Of things that never sound or seem

Save to the pure of heart.

And I am still a wond'ring child,

'Mid Nature's mystery,

By tarn and stream and billows wild,

And sobbings of the sea.

J. LAURENCE RENTOUL

FAIRYLAND

The Nightingale

Frontispiece

So blue the night;

The moon so silver-pale,

The pool so bright,

So still the few great stars—

Could I not hear

His sweet ethereal bars,

There singeth near,

I know, a nightingale.

On such a night,

So full of wonderland,

Had I no sight,

Yet should my spirit