Pam C. (PamC) reviewed on + 117 more book reviews
This is a hardcover, illustrated edition of A Midsummer Night's Dream, with illustrations done by Kevin Maddison and an afterward by Beatrice Phillpotts. Here's what the book cover says about the illustrations and afterword.
...Kevin Maddison's superb watercolor paintings for this beautiful edition of Shakespeare's fantasy tale are lineal descendants of the classic illustrations of Arthur Rackham and other Shakespearean illustrators. Maddison reveals the miniature hidden places of the fairy kingdom, "where oxlips and the nodding violet grows; quite overcanopied with luscious woodbine, with sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.' Within this very English 'wood near Athens,' besotted Titania, enchanted Bottom, and prankish Puck conduct fairy revelries, and Helena and Demetrius, Hermia and Lysander fall in and out of love. But Maddison captures, as the Victorian Rackham never did, the sensual energy of sixteenth century England, the pleasure-loving, light-hearted, and pagan spirit of the play itself. His ram-horned Oberon is the Celtic cousin of Pan, and the bumpkins, Quince, Snug, Snout and Starveling, the heirs of the half-human, hairy-skinned nature spirits of British folk tradition.
Beatrice Phillpotts, the expert on Victorian 'fairy painting' has written an afterword exploring the history of Shakespearean illustration and including examples of the works she discusses.
...Kevin Maddison's superb watercolor paintings for this beautiful edition of Shakespeare's fantasy tale are lineal descendants of the classic illustrations of Arthur Rackham and other Shakespearean illustrators. Maddison reveals the miniature hidden places of the fairy kingdom, "where oxlips and the nodding violet grows; quite overcanopied with luscious woodbine, with sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.' Within this very English 'wood near Athens,' besotted Titania, enchanted Bottom, and prankish Puck conduct fairy revelries, and Helena and Demetrius, Hermia and Lysander fall in and out of love. But Maddison captures, as the Victorian Rackham never did, the sensual energy of sixteenth century England, the pleasure-loving, light-hearted, and pagan spirit of the play itself. His ram-horned Oberon is the Celtic cousin of Pan, and the bumpkins, Quince, Snug, Snout and Starveling, the heirs of the half-human, hairy-skinned nature spirits of British folk tradition.
Beatrice Phillpotts, the expert on Victorian 'fairy painting' has written an afterword exploring the history of Shakespearean illustration and including examples of the works she discusses.
