Walter Crane

Books in Colour

Francesca Tancini

$519.95

Hardback

Forthcoming
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English

Yale University Press
14 October 2025

Antiques & collectables: books, manuscripts, ephemera & printed matter

Born in 1845, Walter Crane was the first professional illustrator to proudly apply himself to commercial arts in the rising age of mechanical reproduction, he reformed the way his contemporaries perceived books, transforming them into influential, political, powerful objects to be pondered with intent and produced with art. Cheap as they were, they could still shape society, instil ideas and conjure worlds of possibility. His picture books served as a tool of popular education, helping to emancipate less well-to-do children and form their taste and personalities. They were of such artistic quality that they entered the homes of intellectuals such as Oscar Wilde and Dame Ellen Terry.

This publication catalogues almost 450 titles illustrated by the artist, 274 of which have been newly discovered by Francesca Tancini, including unpublished illustrator's diaries and account books and printer's and publisher's ledgers and archives. This catalogue offers a completely new picture of Crane and the publishing and artistic world in which he operated and excelled.

By: Francesca Tancini
Imprint: Yale University Press
Country of Publication: United States [Currently unable to ship to USA: see Shipping Info]
Dimensions: Height: 267mm, Width: 197mm,
ISBN: 9780300263947
ISBN 10: 0300263945
Pages: 856
Publication Date: 14 October 2025
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Art and illustration historian, Francesca Tancini is a researcher and visiting fellow at Newcastle University. She has worked as a librarian and co-curated, with Hope Mayo, The World of Walter Crane, at the Houghton Library, Harvard (2015).

Reviews for Walter Crane: Books in Colour

“A hugely valuable catalogue that recovers dozens of books from oblivion, establishes Crane’s canon in detail for the first time, and provides an encyclopaedic source of written and visual references.”—Simon Cooke, Victorian Web