“These Fairy Mountains” illustration for Rip Van Winkle

Arthur Rackham is widely considered to be one of the most significant figures of late 19th- and early 20th-century British book illustration. Rackham’s drawings for Washington Irving’s story about a man who falls asleep for more than 20 years in the Catskills, causing him to miss the American Revolution, comprise the first major works of his career and exemplify the artist’s signature style. Rackham worked in a distinctive combination of pen and India ink with watercolor washes to create moody, other-worldly compositions. He earned a reputation for grotesque—and occasionally menacing—interpretations of well-known European and Nordic folk and fairy tales.