Edmund Dulac’s Olde England
In 1923, “Edmund Dulac, the Distinguished English Artist,” as he was billed on the front covers, was contracted by the Hearst organization to paint watercolors for The American Weekly Magazine, the Sunday supplement for the Hearst newspaper chain. they claimed fifty million subscribers and were carried in seventeen newspapers. The contract lasted nearly 30 years. From the 1920’s onward, Dulac’s income came primarily from his American Weekly illustrations. Dulac painted 106 watercolors from 1924-1951 for thirteen different series for The American Weekly, until his final ‘Tales from the Arabian Nights’ in 1951.
The two series featured here are Seven Tales from King Arthur’s Court from 1940 and 8 Canterbury Tales from 1942, both produced during the Second World War. The format was different from the previous series, each illustration was in a square frame and accompanied by text from American author and educator John Erskine. Unfortunately, the stories are too long to reproduce here, but can be found on Amazon’s Kindle Vella and in our other publications. The captions herein are summaries of the Erskine stories.
What readers are saying about Edmund Dulac’s Olde England:
It’s impressive that the illustrations in this collection were preserved by taking photographs of original issues of The American Weekly. The artwork is crisp and clear, the colors range from boldly vibrant to softly subtle. As mentioned in the book’s introduction, “Each edition was usually between twelve and twenty-four pages and was printed on very cheap and fragile newsprint, so not many intact copies survive today.” I shudder to think that for so many years these illustrations existed in such a fragile form. Having digital versions ensures that generations to come will continue to appreciate them. — Read A License to Quill’s entire review here.