Henry Justice Ford is a curiously under-remembered artist of the golden age. He is most known today, if he is known at all, for his work illustrating all twelve volumes of Andrew Lang’s Fairy Books (fun fact: despite being known as “Andrew Lang’s Fairy Books,” Lang’s wife Leonora Blanche Lang selected and translated all but the first in the series, The Blue Fairy Book).

This is a fairly thorough collection of Ford’s work from Dover Books: Maidens, Monsters & Heroes (2010). Ford’s ink work is bold and intricate, his color work luminous and often combining surprising colors (perhaps a side-effect of the reproduction process). I tend to gravitate more toward his inks, perhaps because there are more monsters there (though that Chimera is pretty fab). Ford, of all of these artists, seems to have delighted in monsters. Especially reptilian ones, though he has talent for grinning demons and goblins, too. So many of his monsters are downright strange, too — look at that Scylla! WTF?! He has quite an array of giants, as well. Longtime readers may recall my enthusiasm for his Arabian cyclops, which featured on the cover of A Natural History of Unnatural Things.

Unlike the other artists I’m looking at this week, Ford has a direct influence on Dungeons & Dragons. That affable looking giant with the club is the clear inspiration for Trampier’s cloud giant illustration in the Monster Manual and I think generally you can see a lot of resonance between the two artists, particularly in terms of framing and posing. Tramp’s pseudodragon seems to have a lot of Ford in it.

A tremendous artist, flipping through any of his collections is like looking through a Victorian Monster Manual.