Basically there are three interrelated editions of The Rubaiyat illustrated by Herbert Cole, all published by John Lane, and all using FitzGerald’s first version. The first Cole edition appeared as no.9 of the Flowers of Parnassus series in 1901 (Potter #9; Paas #2942ff). It contained six full–page illustrations (including the frontispiece), two head–pieces and one tail–piece. Slightly later in 1901 (1a) appeared the second Cole edition, this being a limited edition of 375 copies containing the exactly same illustrations as the Flowers of Parnassus edition, though differently interweaved with the text, plus two extra full–page illustrations and a vignette on the half–title page (Potter #8; Paas #2939–40.) Curiously, the Flowers of Parnassus edition was subsequently reprinted numerous times (1b), but with the addition of the two extra full–page illustrations and the vignette of the de luxe edition. With the various reprints, it is the most commonly encountered edition today. The third Cole edition appeared as no.8 of the Helicon Series in 1928 (1a) (Potter #9; Paas #2958–9), and seems not to have been reprinted – or at least, I have never seen a copy bearing any date other than 1928. Again, it contained the eight full–page illustrations, plus vignette, head and tail pieces, as had the limited edition, though again with different pagination. Concentrating on their related quatrains rather than their locations in the book, the eight full–page illustrations are for quatrain 1 (Fig.1a – “Awake! &c”); quatrain 15 (Fig.1b – “those who husbanded the Golden Grain &c”); quatrain 16 (Fig.1c – “Sultan after Sultan &c”); quatrain 23 (Fig.1d – “make the most of what we yet may spend &c”); quatrain 42 (Fig.1e – “lately by the Tavern Door agape &c”); quatrain 46 (Fig.1f – “tis nothing but a Magic Shadow–show &c”); quatrain 48 (Fig.1g – “the Angel with his darker Draught &c”); and quatrain 52 (Fig.1h – “that inverted Bowl we call the Sky &c.”) Note that Figs.1b & 1d are the two not included in the Flowers of Parnassus edition of 1901. The two head–pieces are shown in Figs.1i & 1j, the vignette in Fig.1k and the tail piece in Fig.1l.
[The illustrations can be browsed here.]
Unfortunately, several of the illustrations are rather dark in places, as a result of which some detail has been lost in the printing, particularly in the Helicon edition. The best illustrations are those in the deluxe edition, partly because they are larger (11cm wide by 15cm high as opposed to Flowers & Helicon both 8x10cm) but mainly because the illustrations have been printed on hand–made paper. In addition, some of the minor detail visible to the eye is lost in scanning, even at high resolution, and this should be borne in mind in what follows.
In Fig.1a the young man presumably represents Morning (or Helios, or Apollo as the Sun ?), having cast the stone that is putting the stars to flight (though the stone is not visible!). Fig.1b seems to represent two men gloating over their treasures (= husbanding their golden ‘grain’), oblivious of the fact that one of their companions is dead beside them, with no sign of his treasures, but with a knife beside him. Devise your own plot for that – robbery with violence or suicide through loss, perhaps. In Fig.1c we clearly have the Angel of Death forcefully dragging a Sultan away from all his pomp (and from a topless dancing girl with a tambourine at the top left!). Fig.1d is much more imaginative, showing Omar raising a glass, with the figure of Death, with his Scythe, lurking behind him, in imitation of his shadow (the Shadow of Death ?) Unfortunately, in this scan the hooded skeletal face of Death, visible in the de luxe original, has been lost. In Fig.1e we clearly have the Angel Shape at the tavern door. Fig.1f is again rather more imaginative in that the shadows are those of a king, a woman holding a mirror (vanity or the transience of beauty), a jester (one recalls John Gay’s epitaph, “Life is a jest, and all things show it; / I thought so once and now I know it”), an elderly couple (?) behind him, followed by a knight & a scholar carrying a book, and with a hand grasping out for its worldly wealth at the bottom left. The phantom figures are thus a cross–section of society, all of whom come (at birth) and go (at death). Fig.1g clearly depicts the Angel with his darker draught, offering it to an old man. Fig.1h again adheres closely to the verse, with two dead children & their sorrowful mother presumably representing the tragedy of infant mortality so prevalent until relatively modern times. Note the unburied skeleton in the background and the ravens in the top right hand corner, emblematic of death. The head–piece of Fig.1i is a rather neat image of Omar twiddling his beard in contemplation, glass in hand, his pen, set–square & dividers on the desk beside him. Note the figure of the peacock, also on the desk, serving perhaps as a reminder of the vanities of this world. The other head–piece of Fig.1j is a rather Bacchus–like figure, raising a glass with one hand and holding up a crowned skull with the other, the latter representing the ultimate fate of even kings and queens. In the background we have perhaps “the rolling Heav’n” of verse 33, partially obscured by some dark diaphanous figure (there may be a face in the top right hand corner) or by some dark diaphanous material (the “Veil past which I could not see” of verse 32 ?) In the vignette in Fig.1k we have ‘Bacchus’ again, raising a glass and seated on a celestial globe with the band of the zodiac (one can make out Taurus, Gemini & Cancer.) Finally, the tail–piece of Fig.1l seems to depict the dead Omar beside another celestial globe and a pile of books, an empty glass turned down at his feet. The details are not clear in places, but he is perhaps being raised up by the figure of Death.
[The illustrations can be browsed here.]
Incidentally, in the British Museum is the print by Cole shown in Fig.1m (his initials H.C. are visible on the bottom edge.). Little information is available about it, but it could clearly have been a possible alternative to Fig.1i. Note the (celestial ?) globe, peacock, hour–glass (?) and skull in the background. Also of interest is the unique copy of the 1909 Flowers of Parnassus edition in the Roger Paas collection (#2956) which contains a flyleaf pen and ink portrait of Omar, signed by Cole and dated 1911. Facing it is a laid in photograph of Cole (Fig.1n.) Unfortunately there is nothing to indicate who once owned this volume.
Though several of Cole’s illustrations show some imagination, others adhere quite literally to the text, and are a little dull as a result, despite being skilfully drawn. Nevertheless, this seems to have been one of Cole’s best sellers (2a). For those readers who see some resemblance to the work of Edmund J. Sullivan here and later, it will come as no surprise to learn that Cole was influenced by the technique of Sullivan (2b). (Sullivan’s Rubaiyat, first published by Methuen & Co. in 1913, some twelve years after Cole’s, went much further and deeper than Cole’s – he illustrated all 75 verses of FitzGerald’s first version, and with a much more imaginative use of symbolism (3).) Cole was also influenced by the Pre–Raphaelites, and some of his work indicates the influence of Rossetti and Burne–Jones.
Cole illustrated three other books in the Flowers of Parnassus series; no.5 – The Nut–Brown Maid, published in1901 (Fig.2); no.8 – A Ballade upon a Wedding, again published in 1901 (Fig.3); and no.11 – Christmas at the Mermaid, published in 1902 (Fig.4.) In each case the frontispiece is given as a typical example.
At around this same time Cole was doing work for The Bibelots series of the London publisher Gay & Bird (4), the most interesting here being Persian Love–Songs, published in 1901, for which he did a generic frontispiece, shown in Fig.5a, plus decorative head and tail pieces for each poet – the head piece for Omar is shown in Fig.5b as an example. Note that the former is signed H. Cole but that the latter is signed only with his initials, H. C. in the top right hand corner. Incidentally, the poems ‘by’ Omar are actually all taken verbatim from the paraphrases of The Rubaiyat by Louisa Stuart Costello in her book The Rose Garden of Persia, first published in 1845, with reprints in 1887 & 1899.
Cole did the illustrations for an edition of Gulliver’s Travels, published by John Lane in 1900 (5). This was a major project for which he did 114 black and white illustrations (including head pieces, tail pieces as well as full and half page ones.) In fact, for anyone with a particular liking for Cole’s work, this book is a prime example. I give here as examples four illustrations which particularly caught my eye for one reason or another. Oddly, Cole reduces the scene of Gulliver’s capture by the Lilliputians (generally favoured by artists) to the status of a head piece to Chapter 1 (Fig.6a). In Brobdingnag he is in the land of giants, and Fig.6b is a fine illustration of his examination by the King’s scholars. Fig.6c acts as the title–page frontispiece to Gulliver’s voyage to the country of the Houyhnhnms, talking horses who rule over a race of savage deformed humanoids called Yahoos, one of whom is shown in the illustration. Quite what the Puck–like figure signifies, though, is not clear – has he impishly given vanity to even the hideous Yahoo (the crown of roses and peacock feathers ?) Finally, Fig.6d illustrates Gulliver’s telling of the nature of War back in his own land to his Horsey hosts. More of that later, but meanwhile note the figure of the Church walking beside the triumphant warrior bearing a severed head.
Another major project was Fairy Gold: a Book of Old English Fairy Tales chosen by Ernest Rhys (J.M. Dent, 1906). For this Cole did 12 full–page illustrations in colour and 70, of varying sizes, in black & white. I give four examples here, the coloured Pre–Raphaelite–ish frontispiece (Fig.7a); the head–piece to the story of “The Lambton Worm” (Fig.7b); the full–page black & white illustration to “The Lady Mole” (the tale of a beautiful woman transformed into a mole on account of her vanity – Fig.7c); and the delightfully quirky tail–piece to the story of the marital misfortunes of “Mr and Mrs Vinegar” (Fig.7d).
Most of the books illustrated by Cole were published between 1900 and 1914, some fifteen books in all (2c), but the ones cited in the foregoing give a good, typical cross–section of his work. Well–crafted they certainly are, but, with some interesting exceptions, they are generally routine stuff and I might not have included Cole in my Rubaiyat Artists series had I not learned about his extraordinary wife and the art work he did for her.
[The illustrations can be browsed here.]
Herbert Cole is well enough known to feature in the likes of Simon Houfe’s Dictionary of 19th Century British Book Illustrators (1998), and much more detailed information about him is now available online (6), so it is necessary here to give only a sketch of his life by way of background. He was born in Manchester in 1867 and by the age of 20 was attending the Manchester Art School, where he gained several prizes and awards for various designs (7). In the 1891 Census he is recorded as still living with his family in Manchester, his occupation being given as “Designer Stained Glass Windows.” It was in Manchester that he met a post office telegraphist called Clara Gilbert, and in 1898 the two of them were married, she becoming Clara Gilbert Cole. By 1901 they had moved to London, presumably because it afforded more opportunities for book illustration. At any rate, in the Census for that year, Herbert (age 33) is listed as “Artist (Book Illustrator)”, his wife Clara is aged 31, and they have a young son, Philip, aged 3½ months. A self–portrait by Cole dated 1907, and now in the British Museum, is shown in Fig.8a (cf Fig.1n). By the time of the 1911 Census he is still listed as a book illustrator, but in addition he is an “evening teacher of illustration & drawing for London County Council at Camberwell School of Art.” No occupation is listed for Clara Cole, either in this census or the previous one. Indeed, little had changed by the time of the 1921 Census, in which Herbert was still a book illustrator and teacher, and Clara’s occupation was “Home Duties” – ie a housewife. A portrait of Clara, painted by her husband in about 1912, and now in the Southwark Art Collection, is shown in Fig.8b. Another, an undated etching, now in the British Museum, is shown in Fig.8c (2A).
But in fact, though Census returns are silent on such things, Clara had been far more than just a housewife, for she had been very busy in the Suffragette movement, in the anti–war and pacifist causes in the First World War, and was an active socialist or “extreme lefty” as she would now be dubbed. As for her husband, Herbert, he was in full support, though less fanatical – unlike his wife, he seems never to have been sent to prison for unruly behaviour or vandalism in a good cause! (In 1922, in support of some unemployed people who had been evicted from their Woodbine Cottages in Camberwell, London, she was arrested for wilfully damaging the doors and windows of the cottages to reinstate the evicted families. She was offered either a fine of 40 shillings or 28 days in prison: “I’ll do the 28 days”, she is reported as saying (8). Nor was this the first time she was ‘banged up’, as we shall see presently.)
But Herbert too was a rebel. He was an atheist (and yet he designed church windows); a pacifist (yet he illustrated A Child’s Book of Warriors, published by J.M. Dent in 1912); a socialist (he was a fan of William Morris and Walter Crane – the former was arrested but not imprisoned for his political activities); and he was a firm believer that the works of Shakespeare were actually written by Sir Francis Bacon (so it must have amused him to illustrate The Flowers of Parnassus Series edition of Christmas at the Mermaid (9) and to decorate The Bibelots Series edition of Shakespeare’s Sonnets. (2d))
Clara seems to have had little to do with Christabel Pankhurst’s newspaper The Suffragette, though Herbert did do one front–cover cartoon for it, for the issue of 20 March 1914 (Fig.9). Rather she and her husband had more involvement with Sylvia Pankhurst’s more left–wing Suffragette newspaper The Woman’s Dreadnought (10). This publication, which changed its name to The Workers’ Dreadnought in July 1917, featured some of Clara’s anti–war poems (of which more below); reported on the aftermath of her above–mentioned prison sentence for vandalism at the Woodbine Cottages (Fig.10a – issue of 8 July 1922); and advertised events in which she was to feature (Fig.10b – issue of 13 January 1923.) Of greater interest here, though, are the anti–war cartoons which Herbert did for the newspaper, of which I give five examples here, and in which one can see the influence of the political cartoons of Walter Crane (2e). [On the theme of war, recall Fig.6d above.]
The first (Fig.11a) featured in the issue of 18 December 1915 (p.20) and clearly reflects the religious concerns at the time, that God could allow such things to happen without intervening, and that both sides claimed to have God on their side – note the British soldier to the left of the Cross and a German soldier to the right. Note also that the Cross is a giant sword. The words “Patriotism is not enough” were said by British nurse Edith Cavell on the eve of her execution by the Germans on 12 October 1915 (11). It is not clear whether the woman in Cole’s picture is intended to be Cavell. The second (Fig.11b) is a small anti–conscription cartoon which featured on the front page of the issue of 13 May 1916. It needs little explanation – the ordinary man is chained to Capitalism and Militarism. The third (Fig.11c) featured in the issue of 16 December 1916 (p.38) and depicts the war as a grim pantomime, with the figures of Church and State dancing merrily in a ring to the tune played by the militaristic figure of Death, while the People suffer in the background. The fourth (Fig.11d), another crucifixion theme with Christ transfixed with a bayonet rather than the traditional lance, featured on the front cover of the issue of 2 June 1917. The figure to the lower right, holding a severed head, is presumably a Demon from Hell drinking the blood of the slain. By now, many troops and their relatives back home must have been echoing that phrase, “My God! My God! Why hast Thou forsaken me ?” and wondering if Jesus really was “Hominum Salvator” (Saviour of Men) (12). To clarify the caption, “Tanks and 11” Guns in the Holy Land” refers to the front page of The Daily News on 28 April 1917, to the article headed: ”The Battle in Palestine – Tanks and 11–inch Guns at Work – Trench War – Glorious Episodes of Gaza Fight” (col.4). Finally (Fig.11e), the one which was the most provocative and controversial, featured on the front page of the issue of 25 August 1917. It depicts the Bishop of London embracing a field gun, followed by other members of the Clergy, the basic tenets of Christianity like “Love Thy Neighbour” and “Thou Shalt Not Kill” having been thrown to the winds. In the background Christ is being led away by a soldier and a policeman. The caption reads: “The Bishop of London a short time ago marched in procession to Hyde Park and preached a sermon. He explained that it was not a pacifist meeting, or he would not be there; that the Conscientious Objector was the most mistaken of men &c. Evidently from these remarks he has seceded from the service of the Prince of Peace.” The bishop’s surprising comments about pacifism and conscientious objectors were quoted in The Times on 11 June 1917 (p.25), two days after the procession took place. They were there that day, the Bishop was quoted as saying, not only to pray to God for His help in victory, but also “to confess their sorrow for those sins which prevented their winning of the war ... to confess with shame the condition of the streets, the indecent plays which were acted and applauded on the stage, the non–observance of the Holy Day and the prevalence of loathsome disease due to immorality.” He went on, “Religion in the national life held the tenth instead of the first place. What they prayed for was a regenerated England ... after the war.” As we now know, of course, the war was won and along came the Roaring Twenties. Photographs of the Bishop in action and the parade to Hyde Park were published in The Sunday Mirror on 10 June 1917 (p.8 – Fig.12.)
[The illustrations can be browsed here.]
In passing we might mention that in its 20 May 1922 issue (p.2–3) The Workers’ Dreadnought featured Clara’s article “Parliament – the People’s Enemy”, subsequently issued as a pamphlet of 13 pages. “Parliament is used to keep the rich rich, and the poor poor,” she said, “and the Labour Party is impotent to alter this.” There should be a note over the door saying, “Abandon hope all ye who enter here.” she added.
As noted earlier, Clara was a poet, and one who served more than one prison sentence for her protests. In 1917 she published a collection of 32 poems written whilst serving a sentence of 3 months in Northampton Prison, under the Defence of the Realm Act, for distributing leaflets advocating peace. (2B) (She declined to pay the alternative of a fine.) Titled Prison Impressions it was published by The Universal Publication Company of Chorley, Lancashire, “with decorations by Herbert Cole.” I show four of the decorations here: Fig.13a appears to represent the Jewel of Truth in the Poem “Truth”; Fig.13b appears to show Freedom’s wings clipped by military madness in the poem “Clipt Wings”; Fig.13c accompanies the poem “Descend, White Dove,” and depicts the hateful worm of battle, Peter’s Sword, & Doves of Peace; and Fig.13d is the generic tail–piece of the booklet. “Amor Omnia Vincit” means “Love conquers all” (it comes originally from Virgil’s Eclogues 10.69.) The seated figure holding an orb presumably represents Love conquering all, the Lion presumably representing Britain.
There is no record of Herbert Cole being arrested and imprisoned for distributing pro–peace propaganda, or for vandalism in the cause, but whether that was because he paid the fine(s), or because he wasn’t as vocal and head–strong as his wife (2C), or perhaps, in part, just because he was a man, is not clear. Plus, a contributing factor may have been that he had long–term health issues (2f), dying in 1931 at the early age of 64. Following his death, Clara, who lived on until 1956, continued to be a political activist, and in 1936 published her booklet The Objectors to Conscription and War, subtitled, “A Record of their Suffering and Sacrifice; Their Letters and Tribunal Appeals; Their Testimony for Liberty of Conscience.” It contained some of her war poems, one (not in Prison Impressions) with an illustration by her husband, dated 1918 attached to it (Fig.14a). Also in the book was an interesting vignette by him showing the skull of a soldier holding up a mask of Peace (Fig.14b). This was the tailpiece to her section “Anathema,” written “After witnessing the dumb agony of a conscientious objector, and an unwilling soldier’s return to the front.” Finally it contains a picture of Clara displaying a placard in front of the entrance to Parliament on 23 April 1921 (Fig.14c).
Though out of sequence chronologically, we must mention here John Oxenham’s (13a) booklet Everywoman and War published in 1915. The frontispiece is shown in Fig.15a and the other illustration on p.21 in Fig.15b. The first part of the book is a play involving a man, who has just returned from the war, clearly injured, and his wife who was left at home. Their dead child lies on the ground before them. The captions of the frontispiece and the illustration give an indication of the play’s theme: the wife’s proposal for preventing any further war via a world–wide Women’s League of Peace. Basically, at the first indication of war, millions of women from both sides would rise up and stand between the opposing forces of men, so that to pursue the war the men of both sides would have to shoot their own wives along with their opponents’. The second part of the book is, in effect, a feasibility study of the plan of which Oxenham approved.
It is curious that the atheist Cole and the devout Christian Oxenham came together for this booklet, but then each was pro–peace (as well as pro–women!), so presumably that is enough to explain it. At any rate, the figure of the woman in Fig.15b (was she modelled on Clara Cole, I wonder ? More on this below (2g)), in addition to featuring on the cover of Everywoman and War, featured in Oxenham’s other book, published slightly later in 1915 (13b), All’s Well!, subtitled “Some Helpful Verse for these Dark Days of War” (Fig.15c). (In fact, the whole text of the play part of Everywoman and War featured in All’s Well!)
[The illustrations can be browsed here.]
Moving back further in time, now, Cole did some interesting illustrations for the magazine Fun in 1901 (2D), its final year of publication (14). One series of cartoons under the heading “The Queer Birds of London” were aimed at the huge contrast between rich and poor in Cole’s day, and to some extent still with us today. One of the rich is the Pied Oyster Catcher in Fig.16a; one of poor is the Gutter Snipe in Fig.16b. Of greater interest to me, though, as a fan of Lewis Carroll, are the illustrations he did for eight instalments of "“Alice in Bounderland”, a parody of Alice in Wonderland (15). In it, Alice is a rather foolish married woman of modest means who envies the so–called ‘Smart Set’ of the rich and famous. Whilst looking at herself in a mirror, the mirror dissolves and she steps through into the land of the ‘Smart Set’. In the first chapter she meets a drunken Duke in a world of champagne, cigars and gambling, a world in which religion and marital vows are obsolete. “In Smart Society,” the Duke explains, “married people are only recognised when they live apart and don’t go about together.” When it is clear that the Duke has designs on her (Fig.17a), Alice beats a retreat, but decides to go on “just to see how nasty and horrid it all is.” In Chapter 2 she meets a Marchioness who has no money but on the promise of a cheque from Alice’s husband, shows her a land laid out like a financial draughts board over which the Smart Set move, even if they don’t actually have any real money of their own. “If you want to get a king,” the Marchioness tells her, “you must know the moves” (Fig.17b). In Chapter 3 (“Society Insects”) she meets the Money Spider (Fig.17c), who recites a rhyme:
‘Will you share in my prospectus,’Said the Spider to the Fly, ‘It’s a lovely piece of cheatingThat the law will never spy;There are dukes among directors, And a statesman on the list,And the shares are at a premium And the mine does not exist.
The dead flies trapped in the web are, of course, his investors. Disgusted at the “miserable rogues and vagabonds"” in Smart Insect Society, Alice moves on. In chapter 4 she meets Tweedledum and Tweedledee (Fig.17d), the famous Jingo Brothers, singers of patriotic songs. But the patriotism turns out to be exploitative colonialization aided and abetted by missionaries, so Alice moves on. In Chapter 5 she learns about the difficulties, inconvenience and even painfulness of fashionable dressing, but is told that one has to suffer it because “it’s the fashion.” In Chapter 6 she encounters “A Fashionable Bishop” who sits on the fence between High Church and Low Church (Fig.17e), and thus offends no–one. In Chapter 7 (“The Lion and the Boar”) we have a symbolic representation of the Boer War in which the English troops “are tied by certain rules and restrictions” (Fig.17f.) Chapter 8 (“The White Knight”) recounts the pointless but fashionable existence of the elderly Knight, another inhabitant of Bounderland who likes to ogle pretty girls, including Alice. It contained no illustration by Cole, and it appears as if the series was left unfinished at the time the magazine folded. It seems clear, though, that in the end, having learned that life in the Smart Set is in reality nothing to be envied, Alice returned happily to the modest and ordinary life with her husband.
Earlier I wondered if Herbert’s wife, Clara, was the model for the wife in the John Oxenham booklets (Figs.15a, 15b & 15c) and I also wonder if she was the model for Alice in “Alice in Bounderland” (Figs.17a, 17b, 17c & 17e) - compare Fig.8c, particularly the hairstyle. Of course, Clara was hardly a foolish suburban housewife, though she would certainly have shared Alice’s final view of the Smart Set. Certainly as J.P. Cole noted of his grandfather, “Many of the women in his illustrations show a close resemblance to his wife Clara” (2g) and we certainly know that he used her as a model (2A).
[The illustrations can be browsed here.]
To take us back to where we started, Cole did some work for The Pall Mall Magazine, one of which was to illustrate Ella Wheeler Wilcox’s poem “One Day” in the issue of September 1899. It spanned three pages, all of which are shown here. Note the grim reaper and clock in Fig.18a; the sundial and joyful but transient butterfly figure in Fig.18b; and the hour glass and scythe in Fig.18c. These are fine examples of Cole’s work at its best.
Though I expressed some disappointment at some of Herbert Cole’s Rubaiyat illustrations at the beginning of this essay, in the course of researching and writing it I have come to a much more positive appreciation of his work. He was clearly a talented artist who, as his grandson J.P. Cole says, deserves wider recognition.
Note 1a: The Flowers of Parnassus edition was first listed in The Bookseller on 3 May 1901 (p.384, col.2) and the limited edition in the same publication on 11 October 1901 (p.794, col.2.) The Helicon edition was first listed in The Bookseller on 9 March 1928 (p.93, col.2.)
Note 1b: I have seen copies dated 1903, 1905, 1907 & 1909. Paas #2957 is dated 1916.
Note 2: A good source of information about Cole and his work by his grandson, Prof. John Cole, appeared in Book and Magazine Collector, January 2005, p.66–72. Particular references are as follows: a) p.71; b) p.68; c) p.67 & p.69; d) p.67; e) p.68; f) p.70; g) p.68;
Earlier, J[ohn] P[eter] Cole had privately published A Brief Survey of the Life and Work of the Artist Herbert Cole (1867–1931) (Bramcote, Nottingham, July 1985.) Running to 90 pages, and printed using a then state–of–the–art MITA DC 313Z copier, it is very rare today and I know of only two copies – one in the National Art Library at the V&A and the other in the Hallward Library at the University of Nottingham. It contains much family detail and other background, with a profusion of illustrations representing a wide variety of Cole’s work, some of it with useful annotations. Unfortunately the print quality (all in black & white) is not great in places, though serviceable. Key references not to be found in the more readily available article in Book and Magazine Collector are as follows: A) For this & other studies of her see pp. 10, 11 & 12; B) Cole p.10 dates the offence to 1914, but the Preface to Prison Impressions clearly dates it to May 1916; C) Cole p.27 says that in some respects Clara “wore the trousers” in the marriage, though she had great respect for her husband and his work; D) pp.52–7;
Note 3: It is worth noting that Sullivan explained in the preface to his 1913 edition that he had actually begun the task for a different publisher some years earlier, but the project fell through after he had completed only nine of the illustrations. Five of these were published in The Pall Mall Magazine in 1900 and two others reproduced in a special “Pen and Ink” number of The Studio in 1901, so that Cole may actually have seen some of Sullivan’s illustrations when working on his own.
Note 4: Cole did vignettes and head pieces for at least five other books in The Bibelots series: Herrick’s Women, Love & Flowers (1899); Shakespeare’s Sonnets (1900); An Elizabethan Garland (1900); Pickwickian Wit and Humour (1903); Prometheus Unbound (1904).
Note 5: The 1900 edition is rare. Note that the common undated edition published by Heron Books in about 1970, with an Introduction by Peter Quennell, contains only four of the full page black and white illustrations.
Note 6: Particularly useful and detailed is the account of Herbert Cole at:
https://spartacus-educational.com/Herbert_Cole.htm
and equally for his wife, Clara Gilbert Cole, see:
https://spartacus-educational.com/Clara_Gilbert_Cole.htm and also
https://menwhosaidno.org/context/women/cole_clara.html .
Note 7: Details of these not being generally available, I give some examples from the local press here: a) gold medal for a carpet design (Manchester Times 25 August 1888, p.5 col.2); b) at the Manchester School of Art, but in a National Competition, Cole gained silver and bronze medals, as well as a National Book Prize, the silver for a wallpaper design, though it is not clear what the other awards were for (Manchester Courier 17 September 1889, p.6, col.8); c) a silver medal for his design for the end of a swimming bath (Manchester Courier 28 July 1890, p.7 col.3.) For some examples of designs for stained glass windows, mosaics and bookplates, see the J.B. Cole booklet cited in note 2 above, pp.76–81.
Note 8: A good short account is to be found in The Daily Herald (28 June 1922, p.5); for Clara’s own account of the case and her misrepresentation in “the Capitalist Press” see The Workers’ Dreadnought (22 July 1922, p.4.)
Note 9: This was a play in verse about an imaginary meeting of the members of the Mermaid Club which took place sometime after Shakespeare had left London to retire to Stratford–on–Avon. It was written by Theodore Watts–Dunton, poet, novelist, critic, and author of (the conventional!) Studies of Shakespeare (1910), but better known these days as a friend of Rossetti and the ‘minder’ of Swinburne in his later years. That Shakespeare retired to Stratford is the conventional view; the Baconian view is that it was for more conspiratorial reasons connected with disguising Bacon’s authorship of the so–called ‘Plays of Shakespeare.’
Note 10: This was almost certainly because The Suffragette declared a political truce with the government in view of the more pressing business of the War, changing its name to Britannia in support of the war effort in October 1915. This resulted in a split between Sylvia and her sister Christabel & mother Emmeline, Sylvia leaving them to run The Suffragette, and setting up the anti–war Woman’s Dreadnought as a result.
Note 11: The full quote is, “Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.” Cavell was executed by firing squad for helping a large number of allied troops escape German–occupied Belgium, this despite her having treated both allied and German soldiers – hence the second part of the quote – humanity before patriotism. As many readers of this will know, Edmund J. Sullivan, already mentioned above, appalled by what he saw as “The Crucifixion of Belgium” at the start of the War, and by the execution Cavell, produced a book of anti–war drawings entitled The Kaiser’s Garland (1915), subsequently used for propaganda purposes.
Note 12: For a good source regarding the various arguments involved, see Christ and the World at War, a collection of sermons preached in war–time, edited & with an Introduction by Basil Mathews, published by James Clarke & Co., London, 1917.
Note 13a: John Oxenham was one of the pen–names of journalist, novelist, poet, church–man and writer of hymns, William Arthur Dunkerley (1852–1941). He was one of the founders of The Idler magazine in 1892.
Note 13b: According to The Bookseller, Everywoman and War appeared in June 1915 (issue of 18 June 1915, p.13) and All’s Well! in December 1915 (issue of 3 December 1915, p.46.) The latter was a great success, for the publisher’s note in my 19th edition of May 1918 reveals sales of 203,000 copies.
Note 14: Fun was a weekly magazine founded in 1861, basically a cheaper version of Punch aimed at a wider less upper class audience. After changes of ownership, editorship and contributors, its popularity declined from about the mid–1870s, the final volume covering January to June 1901. After that date it merged with Sketchy Bits.
Note 15: Most readers of this essay will know that FitzGerald’s Rubaiyat has been parodied a huge number of times over the years, and Lewis Carroll’s Alice books have likewise had much parodic attention. One of the earliest was actually by the original illustrator of the Alice books, John Tenniel. It was a cartoon, with text, titled “Alice in Blunderland”, and appeared in Punch on 30 October 1880 (p.198–9). In New York in 1907, the title Alice in Blunderland, subtitled “an Iridescent Dream”, was also used by John Kendrick Bangs to parody the economic issues of his day. Somewhat earlier, H.H. Munro (Saki – and yes, his pen–name was adopted from FitzGerald!) published his booklet The Westminster Alice (London, 1902), in which Alice seeks to make sense of the politics of the day. This was shortly followed by Charles Geake and F. Caruthers Gould’s John Bull’s Adventures in the Fiscal Wonderland (London, 1904). On War, Horace Wyatt’s Malice in Kulturland (London, 1915) and James Dyrenforth & Max Kester’s Adolf in Blunderland (London, 1939) are worthy of note. Disappointingly, another political parody, by the pseudonymous ‘Caroline Lewis,’ titled Clara in Blunderland (London, 1902), has nothing to do with Herbert and Clara Cole!
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I must thank Fred Diba and Roger Paas for supplying details of their various editions of Cole’s Rubaiyat, and Roger in particular for the use of Fig.1n; also Joe Howard for sharing his views on Cole’s Rubaiyat illustrations. I must also thank various librarians at the British Library, the National Art Library at the V&A and the Hallward Library at the University of Nottingham. Also of great help have been the online resources of the British Museum, the V&A, and the Courtauld Institute, in each case original art works donated by Clara Cole after her husband’s death. Finally, my thanks are also due to the Southwark Heritage Centre for the use of Fig.8b.
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