Pyle’s passionate attention to every feature of book design and manufacture marks each page. Standard histories credit this volume as exercising “an incalculable influence on the whole course of illustration,” 1 and in particular of establishing a niche for high-end children’s stories that stood apart from the usual run of ephemeral, inexpensive, and flamboyantly colorful publications. Its publisher, Scribner, was vying for market share in the burgeoning field of children’s literature, and improbably entrusted Howard Pyle (1853-1911)- a free-lance illustrator and writer who had never produced a book before - with complete oversight of font, layout, decoration, paper, format, and binding for The Merry Adventures, all this in addition to having him create the story and illustrations (figs. 1), Pyle’s lavish and handsome volume urgently proclaimed to its earliest admirers, this is no ordinary children’s book. Produced in a larger than usual format – crown octavo – and bound in full leather with elaborate blind-stamped cover (fig. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, MDCCCLXXXIII. Howard Pyle, The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood of Great Renown in Nottinghamshire. “Now come I, forsooth, from good Banbury Town," said the jolly Tinker, "and no one nigh Nottingham-nor Sherwood either, an that be the mark- can hold cudgel with my grip.More features from our Rare Book Collection "By the breath of my body, Allan," quoth he, "thou hast” Where the quivering rushes hiss and sigh,Īnd his eyes gleamed sharp like the stars at night,Īnd my heartstrings shrunk with an awful bliss,īut she sat all straight with a drooping head,įor her heart was stilled and her face was dead:Īll listened in silence and when Allan a Dale had done King Richard heaved a sigh. “Then Allan touched his harp lightly, and all words were hushed while he sang thus: "'Oh, where has thou been, my daughter?Īnd the gray sky broods o'er the leaden tide,
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