On a recent trip through Kingston
Ontario I went to one of the very few remaining good used-bookstores in the
province. It is called Berry and Peterson, it is downtown on King Street and
has been there for many years. I must admit that, not having been to Kingston
in many years and knowing how few used bookstores are left, I fully expected
Berry and Peterson to be gone. Kingston, being a real university town, used to
be chocked full of used bookstores and you could spend house just in the
downtown area browsing and finding interesting books that are hard to find.
Berry and Peterson is a classic used bookstore, the kind you would read about
in an old book or expect to see in an old movie about London. There are books
everywhere and it almost seems as though there are more overstock books in
piles on the floor than there are on the shelves. To be sure that you haven’t
missed anything you find yourself sitting on the dusty floor moving piles
around and looking through them. The owner is a bit gruff and disorganized and
you get the feeling that he could care less if he actually sells you a book or
not. The whole place gives you a great feeling, though it is, sadly, a feeling
that we will not be able to get much longer as used bookstores are gradually
disappearing.
Berry and Peterson are not
completely uninterested in selling books because when I was there they were
having a ‘buy two get one free’ sale. I found a very interesting looking
exhaustive biography of Anna Letitia Barbauld, a very interesting woman writer
born in the 18th century who, despite the popularity and influence
she experienced in her lifetime is largely unknown today. I also found an older
hardcover edition of Swallowdale by Arthur Ransome, an author whose books I
have always wanted to collect but have seldom seen. This left me with a free
book to find and after a long search for something good, I spotted a collection
of nice hardbound, Folio Society editions of Charles Dickens piled high on a
shelf where they couldn’t be reached without the aid of a ladder. These looked
to me like the reprints of the Folio Society editions of Charles Dickens
illustrated by Charles Keeping. The initial editions of these books issued by
the Folio society in the late seventies and early eighties, were in a beautiful
white, cloth bindings that had illustrations from the text all over the leafs
and spines.
These versions are hard to find because they mostly sold in the
English market. The second version was printed in a plain, traditional green
binding with a pale green box.
Any way, for a very long time I
had been meaning to read Dickens’ Pickwick Papers, his first novel and, many
say, his most humorous and entertaining. And when I saw the Folio Society there
in the pile I thought it was perfect because the illustrator, Charles Keeping
was one of my father’s printmaking teachers at the Regent Street Polytechnic.
My father admired Keeping and his work a great deal and they eventually became
friends.
Keeping was a remarkable
lithographer and illustrated many books over the course of a long career. His
black and white illustrations have the distinct mark of the great English book
illustration during the mid-century.
In his earlier style Keeping illustrated many great novels by authors
like Rosemary Sutcliff , Henry Trease, and Leon Garfield. Eventually Keeping
began writing and illustrating his own picture books with elaborate color
illustrations which bare the distinct mark of his ability as a print-maker. Here is a page from "Through the Window," Keeping's break-through picture book from 1970.
And here is the title-page from his book "Joseph's Yard," a beautiful, richly illustrated book with pictures that seem like a cross between paintings and lithographs.
If anyone doubts that illustrated picture books can demonstrate illustrations that are also examples of beautiful paintings in their own right, need only look at some of Keeping's best books. In my opinion Keeping's color work weakened somewhat over time as his pictures became more dominated by line. (This is a problem that I have seen in many artists and illustrators) This is not to say that any of his work was "weak" by any means, but I think his very best color work can be seen in the earlier picture books. Here is a page from a later picture book entitled "Sammy Streetsinger." (1984)
However, if his color work became less interesting, Keeping's black and white work became masterful. Here is a picture from his now legendary version of "The Highwayman."
If
you want to see more of Keepings work it can be viewed on his website which, which
was run by his widow, a author and illustrator in her own right, Renat Meyer,
until her recent passing.
I inherited a nice collection of Keeping’s
books from my father (a couple of them signed by Keeping himself) and I even
have in my possession a couple of letters that Keeping wrote to my dad.
Though Keeping’s best work is
found in his remarkable picture books, his illustrations for Dickens are really
interesting and add a new dimension to those classic works. Some might argue
that Keeping’s rather stark style fits better to Dickens’ more serious novels
rather than a humorous book like Pickwick Papers. While this might be true,
these illustrations are still fascinating and executed with such skill and
sensitivity that they have definitely made my experience of Pickwick Papers
more enjoyable. I leave you with a picture from that book. (Sorry about the bleed-through from the other side of the page.)
