Beauty and the Beast - Cooper Edens
Cooper Edens - who selected and compiled the illustrations for this version of Beauty and the Beast - calls himself a 'connoisseur of the antique image'. What an apt term for those of us who appreciate and seek out vintage/golden age era illustrations! In this version there are approximately fifty different images from a variety of different sources - including but not limited to the likes of Edmund Dulac, Walter Crane, Arthur Rackham, and Margaret Evans Price. Sometimes the beast looks like a fluffy overgrown teddy bear (as on the cover) and other times a troll, a lion, a walrus and the list goes on. It's really fascinating! I suppose some might say this could interfere with the narrative flow, but it totally worked for me. As Cooper Edens says in his introduction - one is forced to confront the fact that there is no inevitable path to the vivification of a text...Furthermore, the universal power of the myth is superbly emphasized by the different visions. Okay, sure he's selling his product, but consider me sold!