Mabel Dearmer greetings cards

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Greetings cards, Mabel Dearmer

One of our very first blog posts was Helen’s tribute to Mabel Dearmer, “Mabel Dearmer: an unexpected gem“. Dearmer’s illustrations, with their bright, clear colours, were one of the most memorable things I found when I first started to explore the tower and its collections.

Now the library has produced some stunning greeting cards with Dearmer’s illustrations, taken from “The book of penny toys”. London: Macmillan, 1899. (UL classmark 1899.10.141) and from “The wonderful toymaker” In Evelyn Sharp “All the way to fairyland. London: John Lane, 1898 (UL classmark 1898.7.167) The cards have no text, so are suitable for a range of occasions, and are available from the University Library entrance hall during library opening hours

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Mabel Dearmer: Here be dragons

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Children's books, Colour Illustrations, Mabel Dearmer

When I found Mabel Dearmer’s illustrations, I was charmed by their colourful and imaginative nature. The three illustrations shown below are taken from two books that she illustrated for her fellow author Evelyn Sharp: “Wymps, and other fairy tales” (1897.7.635) and “All the way to fairyland” (1898.7.167).

The Little Witch of the Plain

The first, and my favourite, illustration from Wymps shows the Little Witch of the Plain with the suitor whom she had turned into a cat, and whom she needs to turn back with the help of the most valuable thing in the world – which turns out to be a kiss. Mabel Dearmer’s artistic beginnings in poster art can be seen clearly in many of her illustrations, and this one is a case in point. It’s eye-grabbing, with vibrant blocks of colour and clear lines, and the content can be taken in at a glance.

The second shows a little boy who is tired of being mistaken for a girl because of the smock his nurse insists on him wearing.

The little boy in the smock

The lazy dragon

The final illustration (below) from “All the way to Fairyland,” a collection of fairy stories, depicts a lazy dragon who is supposed to be guarding a Princess under enchantment, and the King who wishes to marry said Princess. Although he does marry her in the end, the story takes some unexpected turns before they can live happily ever after.

Mabel Dearmer: an unusual life (Part 2)

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First World War, Mabel Dearmer

Having become interested in Mabel Dearmer – actress, novelist, illustrator, playwright, theatre producer, vicar’s wife, and mother – I decided to find out more about her life and found a book of her letters, written to a friend just before and after the outbreak of the First World War, and published by that friend in 1915 (Letters from a field hospital, 9537.d.226). These letters chronicle her reactions to the impending war, the news of which reached her while she was recuperating from an exhausting London theatre production in the Cotswolds village of Oakridge Lynch.

Hardly any families were left untouched by horrors of the First World War and the Dearmers were no exception, although at first Mabel Dearmer could see no connection between her own life and the momentous happenings beginning to unfold on the Continent.

“I knew nothing of European complications and cared less. The murder of an Archduke meant no more to me than some tale of an imaginary kingdom in Zenda. … I did not hate the enemy, I hated the spirit that made war possible…”

Then her sons enlisted and suddenly war became a very real threat. “…I envied the proud mother who sends her sons, proud of them, proud of the war that calls them out, proud of the God of battles. But that God is not my God, and my heart was heavy.”

She returned to London and helped with European refugees while continuing with her theatre work until her husband, Percy Dearmer, offered to go to Serbia as an army chaplain. On the same day, she decided to accompany him and accepted a posting as a hospital orderly: “Here was the work for which I had waited. I had no doubt and no hesitation. Every tie that could keep me in England had been cut, every difficulty removed from my path.”

Her husband reacted calmly to her announcement that she too was to go to Serbia. “What fun” was his only comment.

In Serbia, she suffered from overwork, the mud, the fleas, prickly heat and the now intimate knowledge of war. “This war will not bring peace – no war will bring peace – only love and mercy and terrific virtues such as loving one’s enemy can bring a terrific thing like peace.”

3 months after leaving Britain, Mabel Dearmer died of enteric fever. Her friend the editor writes of her: “It is easy to go into danger when convinced that your country’s cause is righteous; she thought that for all countries war was unrighteous, yet she went.”

 Her life and that of her younger son Christopher, who was fatally injured at Gallipoli only months after his mother’s death, are commemorated on the war memorial fountain in Oakridge Lynch, near Stroud, Gloucestershire.

In memory of MABEL DEARMER
who went from Oakridge the place she loved best
to give help in Serbia where she died of fever
at Kragujevatz on July 11th. 1915, and of
CHRISTOPHER DEARMER
who died of wounds at Suvla Bay of Gallipoli
on October 6th. 1915 aged 21

Proud of the war all glorious went the son.
Loathing the war all mournful went the mother.
Each had the same wage when the day was done.
Tell me was either braver than the other.

They slept in mire who went so comely ever

Then when you wash let the thought of them abide.
They knew the parching thirst of wounds & fever.
Here when you drink remember them who died.

Mabel Dearmer: an unusual life (Part 1)

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Children's books, Colour Illustrations, Geography, Mabel Dearmer

Mabel Dearmer’s life was as unusual and striking as her pictures: she was born Jessie Mabel Prichard White in 1872, and was a novelist, playwright, translator and illustrator. She was the wife of the Rev. Percy Dearmer (1867-1936), a liturgist and historian of Christian worship, and the mother of the WW1 poet Geoffrey Dearmer (1893–1996).   

From A Noah's Ark geography (1901.9.9)

Mabel Dearmer first meant to be an actress but abandoned this career because “They did not think me pretty enough.” She also studied art and wrote a small number of novels but her greatest successes were in her illustrations and plays. Her illustrations are instantly recognisable for her use of bright, eye-catching blocks of colour and simple yet imaginative designs. She first experimented with poster-art and moved on to book illustration, maintaining the poster style for many of her pictures. Despite their detail, they can be taken in with a glance and, much like posters, make a vivid and lasting impression on the viewer.  

Great energy seems to have suffused any project into which she threw herself; nothing she did was done half-heartedly. In her role as a vicar’s wife, she made it her business to know her husband’s Hampstead parishioners, and, much like Anne of Green Gables, was always able to recognise ‘kindred spirits.’  

From A Noah's Ark geography (1901.9.9)

In spite of her failure to become an actress, she remained heavily involved with the theatre and wrote and produced a great number of plays. In a letter, George Bernard Shaw wrote: “You are one of the few people living who can write plays.” People in the business thought she might one day have her own theatre; with her “combination of tact with driving power” this might have been possible had the war not intervened. She even had a side-line in buying and then leasing theatrical costumes. They were kept in one of the houses that she owned, managed and let out to tenants.