Joan Hassall - The Later Years

The Later Years

The period after the war was one of great activity for Hassall. In 1946 she illustrated 51 Poems by Mary Webb, and then, in 1947, Our Village by Mary Russell Mitford. The wood engravings were, once again, based on drawings of models wearing authentic period costumes. 1947 saw the publication too of A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson, a charmingly illustrated book that was reprinted several times, and of Eric Linklater's Sealskin Trousers. The publisher Rupert Hart-Davis produced a limited edition of 50 copies of the latter, printed by Hague and Gill and bound by the London bookbinding firm of Sangorski & Sutcliffe. Hassall recalls that Linklater, after a rather liquid lunch, sat back after signing 20 copies and announced that he was going to sign the rest J.B. Priestley. None of these copies, if they exist, has ever come onto the market.

1950 saw the publication of The Strange World of Nature by Bernard Gooch, another book based on meticulous observation, Hassall's trademark. In the same year she created 43 illustrations for The Collected Poems of Andrew Young; the wood engravings were used for several later editions.

Her skill came out strongly in the 1955 edition of The Oxford Nursery Rhyme Book by Iona and Peter Opie, where she had to produce some 150 wood engravings to blend in with the period stock blocks used by the Oxford University Press.

Between 1957 and 1962 Hassall produced wood engravings for a 7 volume edition of the novels of Jane Austen by the Folio Society. The edition has been reprinted many times by the Folio Society. Hassall had already worked for the society, illustrating two works by Trollope.

Her last major work was an edition of the poems of Robert Burns for the Limited Editions Club.