The Collected Arthur Rackham Artworks edited by Leonard Stevens (book review)

There are two books published by Redcrest focusing on the works of Victorian fantasy artist Arthur Rackham (1867-1939). The first is ‘The Collected Arthur Rackham Artworks’, which features work from 53 books and 625 coloured illustrations. Most of them are portrait-sized, including some frontispiece full pages and only a couple pages of landscape-sized. To say Rackham was prolific would be an understatement. I’d love to know what scale he did these in.

I originally pulled both these books in case the two girls who faked the Cottingley Fairies used Rackham’s work for their images. Afterall, he was in enough books for every child to have at least one of his illustrated books in their bookcase. The nearest is probably the first panel on page 170 from ‘The Tempest’ and that was only because it had a group of fairies dancing but they lacked wings. Rackham’s fairies are much more elfin with their delicate features and pointed chins.

The range of Rackham’s art here has been influential to a lot of artists. I can see something of Brian Froud’s ‘Trolls’ here for instance. Rackham’s subject matter varied a lot and he was as good at drawing humans and animals as well as backgrounds in exquisite detail as well as fantasy.

With so many illustrations under one cover, you really do need time to savour each one, most of which come with the text lines that were used in their books. If you’re into fantasy art but not have any of Rackham’s books on your shelves then this is a good one to buy.

GF Willmetts

February 2026

(pub: Redcrest Publishing, 2019. 192 illustrated page large softcover. Price: varies. ISBN: 978-1-9996677-7-1)

check out website: https://bookscouter.com/publisher/redcrest-publishing