Anderson's Fairy Tales

This is the frontispiece of a 1945 edition of Andersen's Fairly Tales, illustrated by Arthur Szyk. We were creeped out by this very book when we were kids. Even before my brother and I could read, our older sister Marji would dramatically read aloud the grim stories until we knew them by heart. Of course each one had a lesson about what happens to selfish, bad people. You have to realize this was back in the Dark Ages of the 1950's, when simple book illustrations could engross kids for hours.

In the 90's, I found a used copy of the same edition at the Pike Place Market. Penciled on the cover I see it cost me $15, which was a pretty good sum at the time. It was worth it though, because I can pick it up and remember the exact feeling of being five years old and frightened by a picture. Boy, the synaptic mechanisms of childhood are powerful things.

"Great, fat, sprawling spiders spun webs of a thousand years,
round and round their feet."
from, The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf

"I will sing to cheer you and to make you thoughtful, too."
from, The Nightingale

"I'm afraid he won't find any cattle."
from, Great Claus and Little Claus

Arthur Szky
1894-1951

And this is the sweet-faced man who created all those spooky illustrations. He was a Polish Jew who fortunately left his country in 1921 and lived most of his life in France and the United States. Szyk's drawings and caricatures were so important for the Allied war propaganda effort that Adolph Hitler put a price tag on his head. A glance below at some of his work tells you why Hitler was riled. Oh well.

Wake up, America.

Poor horses with the weight of the world on their backs...