Illustration for William Allingham's ‘The Maids of Elfen-Mere,’ by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

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The Maids of Elfen-Mere

Artist: Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Engraver: The Dalziels

1855; original block shown here, printed 1939

Wood engraving

127 x 77 mm

Harold Hartley, Eighty-Eight Not Out, facing 238

Unlike the image appearing in Allingham’s The Music Master (London: Routledge, 1855), which was printed from an electrotype, this print is taken from the original woodblock. See below for commentary, and mouse over the text for links.

Version in The Music Master

Scanned image, caption material and formatting by Simon Cooke, and commentary by Paul Goldman.

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The Maids of Elfen-Mere: a footnote by Paul Goldman

Harold Hartley was arguably one of the most distinguished collectors of illustrated Victorian books. His collection was sold in 1955 to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston by his son also called Harold. The collection contains numerous blocks and manuscripts as well as a large number of relevant books and proofs of the wood-engravings. It is not widely recognised, however, that his autobiography Eighty-Eight Not Out (Frederick Muller, 1939) contains the Rossetti design The Maids of Elfen-Mere which is printed here from the wood. It was originally published in William Allingham’s The Music Master of 1855. It seems remarkable that this design which is a landmark of Pre-Raphaelite illustration should have been included in a modest autobiography and it is true to say also that this image appears to be better printed than in its first publication. The blacks seem blacker than in the book and one can note that the contrast between the black and white lines is even more pronounced here. Burne-Jones wrote of the illustration: “It is I think the most beautiful drawing for an illustration I have ever seen, the weird faces of the maids of Elfinmere [sic], the musical timed movement of their arms together as they sing, the face of the man, above all, are such as only a great artist could conceive.” Needless to say Eighty-eight Not Out is a rarity today and seems never to have been reprinted. At the time of writing there were just four copies available on the net.

Bibliography

Hartley, Harold. Eighty-Eight Not Out. London: Frederick Muller, 1939.

Created 29 January 2024