Boyle, Eleanor Vere (1825–1916), Victorian fairy illustrator. Born in Scotland, ‘E.V.B.’ painted demure children for more than 50 years. Her fairy work includes Andersen's Fairy Tales (1872) and the lavish gift‐book Beauty and the Beast: An Old Tale New‐Told (1875). Its engravings and lush colour plates feature a Pre‐Raphaelite treatment of nature and Italianate backgrounds and costumes. Boyle's Gothic text and themes of nature, dream, and fate complement her heavily chiaroscuroed scenes, said to anticipate Jean Cocteau's 1946 film in their treatment of light and dark, illusion and reality.
Bibliography
- Dalby, Richard, Golden Age of Children's Book Illustration (1991).
- Darling, Harold, and Neumeyer, Peter (eds.), Image and Maker (1984).
- Hearne, Betsy, Beauty and the Beast: Visions and Revisions of an Old Tale (1989).
— Mary Louise Ennis
