Dorothy Carleton Smyth

Dorothy Carleton Smyth (1880 – 16 February 1933)

Dorothy C. Smyth, Queen Guinevere, Cover Art, 1899

"...the Golden Age of Book Illustration occurred in London at the end of the 19th century and in the dawning years of the 20th — growing out of the reassessment of Book Arts fostered by the Pre-Raphaelites and the Arts & Crafts movement, and aided by advances in printing techniques that made the publication of sumptuously illustrated volumes suddenly economically feasible."

— Terri Windling, Myth and Moor

I'd argue that illustration's Golden Age extended beyond London, not least because of the life's work of Dorothy Carleton Smyth. If ever an artist deserved categorization for her work in this genre, "Dodo" Smyth is she. And if ever an artist was ripe to have someone pore through old bookshelves to discover the best of her illustrations—it is also she. The teenager responsible for the bookcover to the left, well—

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Dorothy Carleton Smyth (1880 – 16 February 1933)