GREENAWAY (KATE)
Under the Window: Pictures and Rhymes for Children, first edition, first issue, colour illustrations, faintly soiled, publisher's cloth-backed green glazed pictorial boards, corners rubbed, DUST-JACKET, loss to spine panel, corners and folds [Schuster & Engen 201.1f], 4to, George Routledge, [1878]
Footnotes:
The first book both written and illustrated by Greenaway.

Provenance: Theodore Reginald Anstey (1875-1944), gift inscription from his godmother S. Wadd on verso of front free endpaper dated 6 November 1879.



Kate Greenaway: the Private Collection of the late Thomas Schuster
Lots 27-51

Thomas Schuster's interest in Kate Greenaway was kindled in the mid-1980s. In buying every Greenaway he could lay his hands on - both for his bookselling business and for his private collection - he noticed differences in binding, publisher, paper stock, etc., and decided to publish a book on the artist. Initially this was to record solely his own collection, but encouraged by Justin Schiller and after discussion with Rodney Engen, Schuster decided to collaborate with the latter and produce a catalogue raisonné of printed Kate Greenaway. Their study appeared in 1986.

Kate Greenaway's first full-length illustrated book, Under the Window, was published in 1879 and immediately triggered the 'Greenaway vogue' as it was known. Some 70,000 copies were sold in England alone, and a further 30,000 in French and German editions. Within months of publication, it was pirated and spawned a network of copycat and spinoff items, although Greenaway and her printer-publisher Edmund Evans rode the wave of popularity and issued myriad books in varying formats and styles - with great commercial success.

By the 1890s, however, Greenaway had become disillusioned by the shameless imitation and exploitation of her style, and she tried to establish herself as a fine artist with gallery exhibitions. Limited success here, combined with a turbulent relationship with John Ruskin, left her a victim of faded popularity and frustrated ambitions. Her disappointment turned to illness, and she died aged fifty-five in 1901.

Today the Greenway child - angelic, round-faced, and in a long muslin gown and bonnet - has come to symbolise childhood innocence, and remains instantly recognisable.

(Adapted from Schuster's 'Preface' and Engen's 'Myth of Kate Greenaway', in their Printed Kate Greenaway: a Catalogue Raisonné, 1986)
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