Pauline Baynes

[My copy of LOTR, purchased in the 1960s, with its cover by Pauline Baynes]

To leave my postings on 'longings' for a day... the English newspapers today are full of tributes to Pauline Baynes and her work (see two postings ago of mine).
.
Pauline Baynes, the artist and illustrator who died on August 1 aged 85, brought the worlds of CS Lewis's Narnia and JRR Tolkien's Middle Earth to life with her superb line drawings.... the rest of the Daily Telegraph obituary can be found at

.
I find it hard to think of the created worlds of Tolkien and Lewis without seeing Pauline Baynes' illustrations in my head.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

See too http://www.lastingtribute.co.uk/tribute/baynes/2868066

Arborfield said...

... and Brian Sibley's piece from his blog:
http://briansibleysblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/pauline-baynes-queen-of-narnia-middle.html

Anonymous said...

My favourite worlds to fall into are (in order):

Middle Earth
Narnia
Watership Down

ALL illustrated (first & best) by Pauline Baynes

Anonymous said...

Oh my, yes-- and how!
With apologies to Other Artists, I'm afraid that any editions with someone else's work slapped on the cover (JRRT's excepted, of course), is given short shrift by me.

They (including Brian Sibley) talked about her on 'Last Words' last night on Radio 4. I was sorry to have missed some of it, but came in where Professor Tolkien met her work in his publisher's in one of those delicious moments wrought by the 'staffwork of the Omnipotence'!
I didn't need to go look at my copies of 'Farmer Giles of Ham' and such to have the illustrations dancing through my head while they were talking.

How much the richer we are for her; thanks, God!