H. J. Ford

About H. J. Ford

Henry Justice Ford (1860 to 1941) was an English painter and illustrator, born in London, best known for illustrating Andrew Lang's coloured Fairy Books, which he worked on from The Blue Fairy Book (1889) to The Lilac Fairy Book (1910).

Ford was educated at Repton School and Clare College, Cambridge, where he took a first in the Classical Tripos in 1882, and then trained at the Slade School of Fine Art and under Hubert von Herkomer at Bushey. From 1892 he exhibited historical and landscape paintings at the Royal Academy, but illustration provided most of his income and reputation.

For the twelve Fairy Books, compiled under Lang's name with much of the translation done by Nora Lang, Ford shared the credit for the Blue (1889) book with G. P. Jacomb-Hood and for the Red (1890) with Lancelot Speed, and was the principal illustrator of the remaining ten, from The Green Fairy Book (1892) through the Yellow, Pink, Grey, Violet, Crimson, Brown, Orange and Olive books to the Lilac (1910). His other work includes an edition of The Arabian Nights Entertainments (1898), King Arthur: The Tales of the Round Table (1902) and C. R. L. Fletcher and Rudyard Kipling's A School History of England (1911). He designed the Peter Pan costume for the first London production in 1904, drew the Kensington Gardens map for J. M. Barrie's The Little White Bird, and played cricket in Barrie's Allahakbarrie team. He died in Shardlow in 1941.

For collectors

First editions of the Lang Fairy Books are the main field for Ford collectors. Print runs grew as the series became popular: the Blue Fairy Book first edition was 5,000 copies, the Red 10,000 and the Yellow (1894) 15,000.