Library Snapshot … Marcia Lane Foster

I came across this book of engravings during a recent collections reshuffle.The merrie tales of Jacques Tournebroche by Anatole France ; translated by Alfred Allinson ; illustrated with sixteen woodcuts by Marcia Lane Foster. Although not lost, it was languishing in a abyss of the unknown without an adequate record on the data base.  So now although I still know little about the author etc. the book is in a kind environment and available for research.

  I did not find much biographical information about Marcia Lane Foster (1897-) except that she studied at St John’s Wood Art School where she was awarded a silver medal for figure painting in 1921.

She was one of Noel Rooke’s wood engraving students.  As a result of his encouragement, she was one of the first of her generation of wood engravers to be published commercially.  Much of Foster’s later work in the 1950s and 60s was line drawing, mainly for illustrations in children’s books and advertising.