Friday’s library snapshot …

 Armed with a magnifying glass and new found knowledge along the shelves I found another item with a monogram; this time a tiny ‘h’  (seen in the first image bottom right) the signature of  William Snelling Hadaway. The book translated from the French by Jessie L. Weston (1850-1928) who was an independent scholar and folklorist particularly interested in medieval Arthurian texts and the illustrator; Caroline Watts of whom I know nothing.

The book called  Guingamor, Launfal, Tyolet, The were-wolf. It was published in London by by David Nutt at the Sign of the Phoenix in 1900.

William Snelling Hadaway (1872-1941)Artist  born and educated in America. Trained in Massachusetts 1890s at the Museum of Fine Arts. For a while in England he designed stamped cloth book covers for all the books issued 1898-1899, for several publishers including Constable, David Nutt, S.P.C.K., James Bowden, Horace Marshall, Harper and Ward Lock.

After graduating, he continued to study in Sicily and Italy for two years before going to the Madras School of Arts, India where he stayed until 1927. Here he specialised in Indian visual arts and published several works on the subject.