Wednesday’s wood engraver …

We have a collection of Wizard of Oz books here in Special Collections.  I am not overly impressed with the books and their illustrations; so I tend not to look to closely while there are other collections with wonderful images to share.  

However, today I was fetching a few items and came across this rather nice edition of L. Frank Baum famous work.

Which is illustrated by Michael McCurdy (born 1942) who is an American illustrator, writer and publisher. He illustrated over 200 books, many written by himself.  Most were illustrated with wood engravings and some with colour images. Those we see here may not be wood engravings but scraperboard; nonetheless lovely and a welcome change from the cinematic images and stilted cartoon characters that seem to be the prefered medium for this children’s novel.