#000569
The Goblin's Glen
Harold Gaze
A gorgeously illustrated fairy tale from the golden age of children's book illustration, written and drawn by the New Zealand–born artist Harold Gaze. In *The Goblin's Glen: A Story of Childhood's Wonderland*, Uncle Hal and his young companions Norman and Ruth wander into an enchanted world of pixies, snow maidens, the King of Trees, and assorted magical creatures. The story is a gentle, dreamlike ramble through fairyland, but the book's real glory is its art: six color plates, delicate silhouette endpapers, and abundant black-and-white drawings, all by Gaze, bound in purple cloth stamped with gilt fairies. Published by Little, Brown in 1924, it belongs to the lavish tradition of Rackham, Dulac, and their contemporaries. Prized today more by collectors of illustration than by young readers, it is a charming survival of a more ornamental age of children's publishing.
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The author-illustrator
Harold Gaze (1885–1962) was a New Zealand–born artist who illustrated children's fantasy books in the first decades of the twentieth century. Largely self-taught apart from a brief spell at art school in London, he lived in Australia, England, and finally the United States, settling in Pasadena, where he did some work for Disney Studios. He worked in the whimsical fairy-and-pixie vein that flourished in the Edwardian and interwar years.
The book
The Goblin's Glen: A Story of Childhood's Wonderland (Little, Brown, 1924) is both written and illustrated by Gaze — roughly 240 pages with six color plates, silhouette endpapers, and many line drawings, in a decoratively bound first edition now sought by collectors.
How it reads
As a story it is a sweet, episodic fantasy very much of its era; its charm for modern audiences lies chiefly in the illustrations and the object itself. The golden-age fairy book — ornate, sentimental, richly produced — has largely given way to sparer, faster children's literature, so this reads today as a beautiful period piece rather than a living favorite. For lovers of vintage illustration it is a genuine pleasure and a fine example of the tradition.
For more context
Pair with the illustrated fairy books of Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac from the same era.
Sources
- Type
- Book
- Author / Maker
- Harold Gaze
- Publisher
- Little, Brown and Company
- Place of publication
- Boston
- Year
- 1924
- ISBN
- None
- Shelf
- Fiction
- Location
- Colorado