Beautiful 1919 Poe illustrations by Harry Clarke

Harry Clarke's 1919 illustrations for Poe's "Tales of Mystery and Imagination" are absolutely wonderful, some of the best Poe interpretations this diehard Poefan has seen. 50Watts has them at super-hi-rez, too. Looks like you can buy a 2008 facsimile edition for about $26.

Harry Clarke, Illustrations for E. A. Poe (via How to Be a Retronaut)

• [Mister44]

  Wow. Nice.

• [Sean Furey]

  This was the first Poe book I ever owned, a slightly moldy copy that my grandma had used to teach 8th grade English back in the day.

• [fergus1948]

  Wonderful illustrations and clearly owing a great debt to Aubrey Beardsley, stylistically speaking.

  • [niktemadur]

    Also influenced by Klimt and one of my all-time favorites, Odilon Redon.  The overall composition and feeling, not the detailing.

    I dunno, something like this:
    http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_BVbcNcXrio4/TNgRwhhDB_I/AAAAAAAAArQ/PxgWc2n5xK0/s1600/guardian+spirit+odilon+redon.jpg

    EDIT: Aw crap, once again the thumbnail doesn’t show on Disqus.

• [Bonnie Nilsen]

  Lots more harry Clarke at: http://www.grandmasgraphics.com/clarke1.php

• [Jack Feerick]

  Mm. There was an old book of my Dad’s lying around the house when I was growing up — an Everyman’s Library reprint of Goethe’s Faust, with illustrations by Clarke that are, if anything, even more grotesque and otherworldly than anything he did for the Poe. Freaked me right out, as a kid.

  Interesting guy, Harry Clarke. Drawing was sort of a sideline for him — his primary medium (or at least his favorite) was stained glass.

  • [Bonnie Nilsen]

     Here are the Faust drawings. Definitely some are NSFW. http://www.grandmasgraphics.com/clarke4.php

  • [fergus1948]

    Just up the road from me in the Cheshire town of Nantwich is a beautiful stained-glass church window by Harry Clarke. (I think stained glass was the family business in Ireland.)
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/lestiverton/3180525108/in/gallery-44949839@N07-72157623385680087/

• [Erik Walton]

  I have the original book… it was my grandmother’s. I remember many rainy Sundays curled up on her couch reading 

  “Tales of Mystery and Imagination” Just looking through it brings back wonderful memories!

• [politeruin]

  For UK people they sell a nice big hardback of Poe’s stories with these illustrations in The Works.

• [irisclara]

  The illustration for The Premature Burial that’s posted over at Retronaut still gives me chills.

• [Andrew Kane]

  Cory, you rock so hard in so many ways!

• [Rosin Ffield]

  People say “oh it may be after Beardsley / Klimt”, i feel it’s the flavour of the general art nouveau era. The “cellular character of the drawing definitely reminds me of nowadays French artist Fred Deux.

• [Rosin Ffield]

  Talking about Poe, is it correct the way i remember it: just like Ambrous Bears (spell?) he wasn’t “burried”, just disappeared??

  • [Beanolini]

    ‘Ambrose Bierce’, and no, Poe didn’t disappear, but his death was somewhat mysterious. A novel, ‘The Poe Shadow‘ was published recently on this subject.

    I have a 1970s reprint of the Harry Clarke book- there seem to be plenty of these around, and they’re about one thousandth of the price of the 1919 edition.

• [Sarah]

  http://sarahhalford.wordpress.com/2012/04/01/the-emerald-isle/

   I took some photos of the amazing stained glass in an art museum in Dublin, and also the stained glass he did for Bewley’s cafe. It’s not too rude!

• [buddy66]

  Why would a man wear a wig of cooked spaghetti?

  I’m a Frank C. Pape fan myself.

• [Cliff Hesby]

  Wow, Barry Windsor Smith must have been a fan.