Cope, Peter & Dawn DEAN'S RAG BOOKS & RAG DOLLS
London New Cavindish Books 2008 4to Cloth, dust jacket 255 pages Peter Cope trained as a graphic designer at the Central School of Art & Design in the 1960s and during that time became interested in the late-19th and 20th century book illustration. His career in design has spanned forty years, during which time he created corporate identities of many national and international organizations and taught typography in universities and art colleges around the United Kingdom. He is not focusing on writing and designing books.
Dawn Cope's love and literature and sense of history was instilled into her at an early age. Memories of books read in her formative years, an interst in illustration and a spell as a book dealer led to a fascination for researching the lives and backgrounds of children's book illustrators. In 1980 their collection of children's illustrated postcards, and ephemera went on display at the Museum of Childhood, Bethnal Green. 20 years later, in 2000, they produced Postcards from the Nursery which chronicles children's postcards published between 1900 and 1940, accompanied by short biographies of many popular children's artists.
In 2001 the opportunity arose to research the now dispersed archive of the Dean's Rag Book Company with the kind permission of its owners Neil Miller and his wife Barbara. As well as manufacture's samples of rag books and toys, they found in the collection original contracts, catalogues, ephemeral leaflets and scrap books full of contemporary cuttings revealing the acclaim with which rag books were received in their heyday by the press and public alike.
In this volume and its accompanying DVD, Peter and Dawn record in detail the fascinating range of over 350 Dean's Rag Books published before World War II, created by some of the best-loved artists of the day, along with Dean's 'Knockabout Toy Scheets' and around 2500 toys and dolls from the same period. Price: $ 100.00
other currencies
Order nr. 101939