Burgess, Gelett. Original Frontispiece Illustration for "The Burgess Nonsense Book"

(New York, 1901). Black and red ink and pencil, on three sheets of paper, mounted to board; manuscript notations along margins noting size ("4 1/2 inches) and printing colors ("If this is printed in 2 colours fill in all the Hair and Whiskers Solid Red"); pencil notations on verso. 11 1/2 x 8 1/4 in. (292 x 209 mm). In frame, 12 3/4 x 9 3/8 in. (324 x 238 mm).

A fine pen and ink illustration by American artist and humorist Gelett Burgess (1866-1951), created for the frontispiece of The Burgess Nonsense Book...A Complete Collection of the Humorous Masterpieces of Gelett Burgess (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1901). Titled "Nonsense is the Fourth Dimension of Literature", Burgess's illustration depicts one of his famous humanoid troublemakers, the Goops. The grinning round-headed figure stands at the front of a classroom, instructing students in the art of nonsense (the book version of this illustration is captioned the "Nonsense School"), and points to a chalkboard adorned with Goop-like figures, many of whom feature in the book, such as the "Muse of Nonsense" and the "Alphabet of Famous Goops." Also shown is in an image replicating Burgess's most famous nonsense poem, "The Purple Cow". Six students in the fore-ground are shown in various states of attention, either reading, sleeping, drawing the Goop figures, and one sitting with her mouth slightly agape.

This image was first used as the cover for the The Nonsense Almanack for 1900 (1899), and reused here, with slight alterations, for the frontispiece for The Burgess Nonsense Book (1901).

The Goops were among Burgess's most famous, and peculiar, creations, and first appeared in the late 19th-century in publications such as Burgess's The Lark and the children's periodical St. Nicholas. Characterized by their sphere-shaped heads and mischievous behavior, the Goops were set among everyday people, and as "repositories of all that is naughty" (Stein, Disgusting Lives, The Paris Review, 2014) stood in stark contrast to acceptable child manners. They first appeared in book-form in 1900, in Goops and How to Be Them, and then in The Burgess Nonsense Book (1901). They then appeared in More Goops and How Not to Be Them (1903), and in other publications up until the 1950s.

Lot includes a copy of The Nonsense Almanack for 1900 (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1899).

This lot is located in Philadelphia.

Provenance

From the collection of Justin G. Schiller

Burgess, Gelett. Original Frontispiece Illustration for "The Burgess Nonsense Book"