The Nicest Girl in the School – Balliol Salmon voor Angela Brazil, ca. 1915

“The Nicest Girl in the School”, drawing in pen and pencil made around 1915 by Arthur John Balliol Salmon for…

“The Nicest Girl in the School”, drawing in pen and pencil made around 1915 by Arthur John Balliol Salmon for the cover of a book by Angela Brazil. Signed in pencil in the lower left. Size (paper): 31 x 18 cm.

Arthur John Balliol Salmon (1868-1953) is best-known today for being the illustrator of seven of Angela Brazil’s early girls’ school stories. In his day, however, he was a highly-regarded artist and illustrator particularly noted for his work for The Pall Mall Magazine, The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News and, most importantly, The Graphic.

His illustrations of schoolgirls were, perhaps, prototypes of what became a Salmon trademark – “the Young Lady of Fifteen.”

No other illustrator has drawn such subjects quite in the Balliol Salmon way. Strangely few illustrators have dealt with his “young girl” types at all. His well-groomed youths, and girls of all ages from ten to twenty, have been exceeding pleasant to encounter, and very attractive reminders that all girls in their “teens” are not “Flappers and their male counterparts are not necessarily sportsmen, impossibly handsome heroes, or pretentious young men.

Salmon was Angela Brazil’s favourite among her illustrators with his lovely elongated schoolgirls.  It was said that Salmon’s illustrations were jettisoned for comic cartoons in France and winsomeness in America

Angela Brazil (1868-1947) was one of the first British writers of “modern schoolgirls’ stories“, written from the characters’ point of view and intended primarily as entertainment rather than moral instruction. In the first half of the 20th century she published nearly 50 books of girls’ fiction, the vast majority being boarding school stories.

Her books were commercially successful, widely read by pre-adolescent girls. Though interest in girls’ school stories waned after World War II, her books remained popular until the 1960s. They were seen as disruptive and a negative influence on moral standards by some figures in authority during the height of their popularity, and in some cases were banned, or indeed burned, by headmistresses in British girls’ schools.

While her stories have been much imitated in more recent decades, and many of her motifs and plot elements have since become clichés or the subject of parody, they were innovative when they first appeared. Brazil made a major contribution to changing the nature of fiction for girls. She presented a young female point of view which was active, aware of current issues and independent-minded; she recognised adolescence as a time of transition, and accepted girls as having common interests and concerns which could be shared and acted upon.

Price: Euro 1.250,-