Where The Blue Begins - Illustrated by Arthur Rackham

By Christopher Morley

Pook Press celebrates the great Golden Age of Illustration in children's literature. Many of the earliest children's books, particularly those dating back to the 1850s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Pook Press are working to republish these classic works in affordable, high quality, colour editions, using the original text and artwork so these works can delight another generation of children. Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) was one of the premier illustrators of the early 20th Century. He illustrated many books, the first of which was published in 1893. Throughout his career he had developed a very individual style that is was to influence a whole generation of children, artists and other illustrators. His haunting humour and dreamlike romance adds to the enchantment and fantasy of children's literature.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Apr 16, 2013
• ISBN: 9781473387119

Christopher Morley

Christopher Morley (1890-1957) was an American journalist, poet, and novelist. Born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, he was the son of mathematics professor Frank Morley and violinist Lillian Janet Bird. In 1900, Christopher moved with his parents to Baltimore, returning to Pennsylvania in 1906 to attend Haverford College. Upon graduating as valedictorian in 1910, he went to Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship to study modern history. While in England, he published The Eighth Sin (1912), a volume of poems. After three years, he moved to New York, found work as a publicist and publisher’s reader at Doubleday, and married Helen Booth Fairchild. After moving his family to Philadelphia, Morley worked as an editor for Ladies’ Home Journal and then as a reporter for the Philadelphia Evening Public Ledger. In 1920, Morley moved one final time to Roslyn Estates in Nassau County, Long Island, commuting to the city for work as an editor of the Saturday Review of Literature. A gifted humorist, poet, and storyteller, Morley wrote over one hundred novels and collections of essays and poetry in his lifetime. Kitty Foyle (1939), a controversial novel exploring the intersection of class and marriage, was adapted into a 1940 film starring Ginger Rogers, who won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role.

Reviews for Where The Blue Begins - Illustrated by Arthur Rackham

[datrappert · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Mr. Gissing, newly burdened with three foundlings, sets off to the city (New York) to make some more money. But it is also an excuse to pursue his quest to find the blue horizon that has always been out of reach, no matter how far he has walked across the meadows and hills to find it. He takes a job at a department store in the city, later joins the church as a "lay reader" where he drastically exceeds his authority, and finally finds himself a sea captain! All along the way, he excels at small things but still fails to find the spiritual fulfillment he is seeking.Oh - and one thing I forgot to tell you - Mr. Gissing and all the other characters in the book, save perhaps one, are dogs. Why, I can't say. Other than a few references to paws and finding it hard to reach things, they behave just like humans. They smoke pipes, they go shopping, they drive cars, they go to church. The only hint of why Mr. Gissing must be a dog perhaps comes in his musings on the nature of god, whom he thinks, may not be a dog....Despite its strangeness (or perhaps because of it), this is a well-written, engaging story. Mr. Gissing's success in the department store is a pretty good lesson for anyone in a service industry. After that, the story becomes pleasingly insane. There is a hilarious escape in a steamroller, and Mr. Gissing's actions after he finds himself in charge of a seagoing passenger vessel are certainly memorable. The ending of the story--until the final lines--is a little abstract and makes the reader wonder about what has happened before, but the final moral is a good one. Morley is trying to say something important here; why he chose such a strange vehicle calls for more research!

[extrajoker · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

first line: "Gissing lived alone (except for his Japanese butler) in a little house in the country, in that woodland suburb region called the Canine Estates."I really didn't enjoy this as much as the other Morley books I've read (Parnassus on Wheels and The Haunted Bookshop). The surrealism (dogs -- one, by the name of Gissing, in particular -- who dress in clothes, work jobs, attend church, and otherwise carry on very much as men) didn't work as well for me as well as it has in G.K. Chesterton's novels (to which I kept finding myself compare this).Still, there are some good moments...particularly a chase scene involving Gissing, a steam roller, and a posse-pack led by the outraged Bishop Borzoi.