Stratton, Helen (fl. 1891–1925)

British children's book illustrator. Flourished between 1891 and 1925.

Selected works as illustrator:

Songs for the Little People (1896); Beyond the Border (1898); The Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen (1899); The Arabian Nights Entertainments (1899); Grimm's Fairy Tales (1903); Heroic Legends (1908); The Princess and the Goblin (1911); The Princess and Curdie (1912); A Book of Myths (1915).

A popular turn-of-the-century illustrator, Helen Stratton lent her art-nouveau style to numerous works of fairy tale and folklore. In 1898, she provided 167 illustrations for Walter Douglas Campbell's Beyond the Border, a folklore collection which was considered one of the best to appear after Jacobs and Batten's Celtic Fairy Tales. The following year, Stratton was at the height of her career with her illustrations for The Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen. Notes Richard Dalby: "[Stratton's] bold and humorous style was perfectly suited to the phantasmagorical world of 'The Little Mermaid,' 'The Garden of Paradise,' 'The Star Queen,' 'The Emperor's New Clothes,' and thirty Andersen tales." Also in 1899, Stratton was among those illustrators, including W. Heath Robinson, whose work appeared on the pages of The Arabian Nights Entertainments. Her schedule at the time likely demanded the production of a minimum of two or three illustrations per day so as to meet the deadlines for such commissions.

Other Stratton-illustrated titles appeared in the following years, including Grimm's Fairy Tales, Heroic Legends, and A Book of Myths. In 1911 and 1912 respectively, her illustrations for the classics The Princess and the Goblin and The Princess and Curdie proved highly popular.

sources:

Dalby, Richard. The Golden Age of Children's Book Illustration. NY: Gallery, 1991.