  Apart from her work, full record of which is made in the following pages, there was in the life of Kate Greenaway one outstanding feature—her friendship with John Ruskin. To this, without the permission of the great critic’s legal representatives, no sort of justice could have been done. It is therefore our first duty and pleasure to put on record our great indebtedness to Mrs. Arthur Severn, Mr. Alexander Wedderburn, K.C., and Mr. George Allen, for their liberality in allowing us to make copious extracts from Ruskin’s side of the vigorous correspondence which was carried on between him and Kate Greenaway for so many years; this generous permission is only accompanied by the proviso that, in accordance with the undertaking announced by the editors and publisher of the Library Edition of Ruskin’s complete work, all of his published letters shall ultimately be included in that noble issue. These letters have here been printed with the strictest adherence to Ruskin’s peculiar method of punctuation—long and short dashes in place of commas, semicolons, and the like. From Kate Greenaway’s side of the correspondence abundant drafts have also been made, for they reveal the writer’s character and method of thought better than any independent estimate could do. That no violence has been done to her native modesty is proved by the following letter 8th June 1900. 39, Frognal, Hampstead, N.W. My dearest Joanie— ... I feel it is very kind of you to consider my wishes about the letters, as I know of course you could do as you wished about them. In the later letters, I think, there is nothing I should object to any one reading—in the early ones nothing I should mind you reading; but there might be things in some one would feel perhaps better not published.... I have a great many letters of his—one for nearly every day for three years, but they are all of the time of my early letters, before his great illness. Since—he has never written—as you will remember. I should like to have any letters in the Life, if one is written, that were thought desirable. I am not sure the later ones of mine are much in a literary way; but he did say some of the earlier ones ‘ought to exist as long as the most beautiful of my drawings should—because they were also beautiful.’ I tell you this because you know how great was the affection between us that you will not think it conceit. I feel so honoured by it, that I can only feel honoured for my name ever to appear near his. My dearest love to you. Katie. From the facsimile letter given in the following pages, it will be observed that Kate Greenaway later on developed a habit of frequently employing capital letters in unusual places. These, as a mere eccentricity, have been corrected in transcription. Our gratitude—may we say the gratitude of our readers also?—is due to the several ladies and gentlemen who have supplied us with reminiscences, correspondence, and other information duly acknowledged in the text; indeed, with but one or two exceptions, we have been favoured with the most obliging responses. Mrs. Arthur Severn, Lady Maria and the Hon. Gerald Ponsonby, Mrs. Frederick Locker-Lampson, Mr. Austin Dobson, Miss A word must be said concerning the illustrations. The published works of Kate Greenaway are known, and ought to be found, in every house where children live and are loved. We have therefore confined ourselves, with a few rare and intentional exceptions, to work quite unknown to the public, such as early drawings of the cottage at Rolleston where her career, undreamed of as yet, was being determined, thumb-nail sketches with which she embellished her letters, and more important drawings done for sale to picture-buyers or for presentation to friends. About half a hundred have been reproduced with particular care by the ‘three-colour process,’ for the most part with extraordinary success, the rest by other methods suited to the exigencies of the case. For the use of the originals we are indebted to the kindness of many owners—to Her Grace the Duchess of Bedford, to Mr. Ernest G. Brown, Miss Violet Dickinson, Mr. Alfred Emmott, M.P., Mr. W. Finch, Mr. Campbell S. Holberton, Mr. Charles P. Johnson, Mrs. W. Levy, the Hon. Gerald Ponsonby, Mr. John Riley, Mr. Stuart M. Samuel, M.P., Mrs. Arthur Severn, Mr. Henry Silver, the Hon. Mrs. W. Le Poer Trench, Mr. Harry J. Veitch, Mr. Wm. Marcus Ward, and Mr. Creeser, as well as to Mr. John Greenaway. Other illustrations come from the collections of Miss Evans, Lady Victoria Herbert, Mrs. F. Locker-Lampson, Rev. W. J. Loftie, F.S.A., Lady Pontifex, and Mr. B. Elkin Mocatta. To all of them we express our hearty thanks, and to Messrs. Cassell & Co. our indebtedness for having permitted the publication of the border illustration with Mr. Austin Dobson’s ‘Home Beauty,’ the |
|
