By Selina Deleonardis
Henry James Ford, often shortened to H. J. Ford, was born in 1860 in London England. After earning a scholarship to Clare College and achieving a first-class degree in the Classical Tripos in 1882, he returned to London. He entered the Slade School of Fine Arts, and later the Bushey School of Art, where he studied under the successful painter, composer, and film director Hubert von Herkomer.
Although he started by exhibiting historically-themed paintings and landscapes at the Royal Academy of Art in 1892, he is mostly known for his contributions to illustrated books. He is most famous for the illustrations he provided for Andrew Lang’s colored Fairy Book – series, which captivated generations of British children and saw worldwide translations during the 1880s and 1890s. His precise illustrations were influenced by Walter Crane and the Pre-Raphaelites, especially the ethereal figures and idealized classical and medieval settings of Edward Burne-Jones. This influence continued in his later colored illustrations. Another of his famous contributions to illustration came from the Arabian Nights Entertainments (1898). This edition reproduced the first translation of Galland’s European version of the Arabian Nights.
Andrew Lang, The Blue Fairy Book (New York: A. L. Burt Company, 1889) Tulane University Special Collections (Legacy Collection) 398.4 L269b and via the Internet Archive.