The Frog Prince

Artisan: Lauren Delaney
Date: 2022
Dimensions: 24 x 17 x 5 mm. / 1 x ⅝ x ⅛ inches (height x width x depth)
Intended Room: Night Nursery
Inventory number: 2022.039
Category: Books

This classic fairy tale appears here in a Victorian edition with a cover designed by Walter Crane. Between 1867 and 1877, Crane collaborated with the publisher George Routledge to design thirty-seven ‘toy books’, which included The Frog Prince (1874). He felt that earlier books for young children had been ‘careless and unimaginative’, with crude illustrations, and his aim was to create integrated ensembles of text, illustration and frontispieces which would add beauty and elegance to the stories. This particular cover design, with the title text amended, was used for at least two other books in the series, The Alphabet of Old Friends and Beauty and the Beast. The latter, along with The Frog Prince, is considered the most successful of the books that Crane produced, with elaborate illustrations full of Aesthetic flavour.