Ardizzone, Edward (1900–79), British author and illustrator, born in Vietnam (then Haiphong, French Indo‐China) and domiciled in England from age 5 on. An acclaimed book illustrator for children as well as for the works of Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Bunyan, Walter de la Mare, James Reeves, and Eleanor Farjeon, Ardizzone is most noted for the Tim series, Little Tim's sea‐going adventures which were rooted in Ardizzone's childhood days roaming the docks with his cousin at Ipswich. In 1956 he received the first Kate Greenaway Medal for Tim All Alone. Self‐identified as a ‘born illustrator’, as one who does not draw from life, but who draws symbols for things yet uses his eye and his memory to ‘augment and sweeten his knowledge’, Ardizzone viewed illustration as a stage designer. Richly drawn settings became the hallmark of his style. His success largely rests with his ability to integrate text and illustrations and critics have lauded his blending of text and line. Perhaps his greatest achievement as a children's book illustrator is Eleanor Farjeon's The Little Book (1955), which received the 1955 Carnegie Medal of the British Library Association and the 1956 Hans Andersen Medal of the International Board on Books for Young People. Among Ardizzone's most interesting illustrated fairy‐tale books are Peter Pan (1962), How the Moon Began (1971), The Gnome Factory (1978), Ardizzone's Hans Andersen (1978), and English Fairy Tales (1980).
Bibliography
- Alderson, Brian, Edward Ardizzone (1972).
- Ardizzone, Edward, On the Illustrating of Books (1957; 1986).
- ——The Young Ardizzone (1970).
- White, Gabriel, Edward Ardizzone (1979).
— Sharon Scapple
