Harry Clarke – Illustrations for E.A. Poe’s Tales of Mystery & Imagination 1923

Harry Clarke (March 17, 1889 – January 6, 1931) was an Irish stained-glass artist and book illustrator. Born in Dublin, he was a leading figure in the Irish Arts and Crafts Movement.

Harry Clarke the younger was exposed to art (and in particular Art Nouveau) at an early age. He went to school in Belvedere College in Dublin. By his late teens, he was studying stained glass at the Dublin Art School. While there his The Consecration of St. Mel, Bishop of Longford, by St. Patrick won the gold medal for stained glass work in the 1910 Board of Education National Competition.

Tales of Mystery & Imagination (often rendered as Tales of Mystery and Imagination) is a popular title for posthumous compilations of writings by American author, essayist and poet Edgar Allan Poe and was the first complete collection of his works specifically restricting itself to his suspenseful and related tales.

Presenting Harry Clarke, one of the most talented Golden Age illustrator in a new edition of Edgar Alan Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination. The original first edition of Harry Clarke illustrations of Edgar Alan Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination published in 1919 is no doubt the best illustrated Poe ever. In the new edition of the Tales of Mystery and Imagination , published in 1923 by George Harrap Co., in addition to all the illustrations from the 1919 edition, Harry Clarke added eight new color plates and one new B/W plate.

The eight new color plates is a big addition to an already perfect book, but I still prefer the original edition. His B/W illustrations is far superior to his watercolors and while the colors plates are beautiful, they present a certain distraction compare to his B/W plates and the darkness of E.A. Poe’s tales.

Other books illustrated by the great Harry Clarke are also available for perusal in our gallery: Faust, The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault, Selected Poems of Charles Swinburne, Andersen’s Fairy Tales, Year’s at the Spring.

Art Gallery: Harry Clarke – Edgar A. Poe’s Tales of Mystery & Imagination 1923