Looking Backwards: the Illustrations of Edmund Dulac

Edmund Dulac stands as one of the greatest illustrators of all time. Born in France in 1882 and later emigrating to London, Dulac would rise to prominence during the golden age of English illustration. Though the period was filled with iconic artists, no other illustrator would work so prolifically to broaden the visual scope of the fantasy genre. Dulac illustrated everything: Shakespeare, Rubaiyat, Hans Christian Andersen, Edgar Allan Poe, The Arabian Nights, and countless other fantasy-inspired illustrations for stamps and relief books. No other artist would so profoundly illuminate turn-of-the-century European literature.

Like other Golden Age illustrator's Dulac's work chiefly appeared in special deluxe edition printings that were immensely popular from 1890 until the beginning of the First World War. These vibrantly illustrated pressings were generally marketed as gifts that made their way into upper middle class libraries in England, France and the United States. Though fantasy had been a rapidly expanding genre throughout the 1800s, these illustrated books allowed readers to see worlds that were sometimes difficult to envision based on text alone. While a solid century's worth of film, television, comics and other visual media have provided us with a wealth of easily identifiable fantasy tropes, it's easy to forget how hard it might be for someone to envision a secondary world full of imaginary places, creatures, and technologies. Artists like Dulac not only helped enliven the texts they illustrated, but they also helped establish what we might consider the visual "palette" of modern fantasy.