The Diverting History of John Gilpin
The Diverting History of John Gilpin
Written by Randolph Caldecott
England, Warne, 1896
8.5" x 9.25"
Kerlan Collection, Children's Literature Research Collections
University of Minnesota Libraries
This stirring but also richly comic illustration of a man astride a runaway horse is the image reprised in bronze on the Caldecott Medal. It exemplifies the artist's knack for pressing drawing to the point of animation. Maurice Sendak, the 1964 Caldecott Medal recipient for Where the Wild Things Are, especially prized this aspect of the artist's work: "The word quicken, I think, best suggests the genuine spirit of Caldecott's animation, ... the surging swing into action that I consider an essential quality in pictures for children's books."
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