The Scottish artist Alice Edith Ross was born in Glasgow on 27 November 1863, the daughter of William Tait Ross and his wife Barbara Ross (née Whyte.) On her birth certificate her father’s occupation is listed as “writer”, and this occupation is repeated in the census return for 1871. Of particular interest here is his book The Fine Arts and Arts of Design (1885) (1) since it gives a glimpse of the background into which our artist was born. By 1881 Alice and her family had moved to 18 Glenorchy Terrace, Newington, Edinburgh, and the census return for that year gives a good snapshot of the family: she was now aged 17 and a “Scholar” (art college ?); she had an older brother, William L. Ross, aged 18, a medical student; and an older sister, Emily J. Ross, aged 27, of no stated occupation. Her father and mother were now aged 58 and 54 respectively, and they employed a servant, Jessie Mackay, aged 22. Her father’s occupation was now listed as “Procurator,” which presumably indicates that, as is so often the case, his writing did not pay the bills.
From 1881 until her death on 10 July 1954, Alice Edith Ross continued to live in the family home, 18 Glenorchy Terrace, which makes her movements (or lack of) particularly easy to trace via electoral rolls. She did, however, apply for a passport in August 1907 with the intention of visiting Germany and the Continent, but it is not clear whether she actually ever went. Incidentally, via the 1871 census, she seems to have had a sister, Frances E. Ross, two years younger than her, but since she does not appear in the family’s 1881 census, she may well have died young, though I have found no record of her death, or any record of her living anywhere in the census returns for 1881 and later.
The key thing we know about the artistic career of Alice Edith Ross is that she was an active member of the Scottish Society of Artists (the SSA), exhibiting some 74 paintings with them between 1897 and 1936 (2). As indicated above, Ross died on 10 July 1954, at the age of 90, so what was she doing between 1936 and her death ? This is not clear, but her death certificate perhaps provides a clue, for she was found dead in bed by her housekeeper, so she was not examined by a doctor until after death. The cause of death is listed as “Apparently Senility”, though this could of course simply imply that she died of old age.
But was the artist Alice Edith Ross the same as the book illustrator Alice Ross ? Alice Ross is a very common name, but the first indication that they are indeed the same person is the fact that Alice Ross illustrated at least a dozen books for the Edinburgh publisher W.P. Nimmo, Hay & Mitchell which were also printed in Edinburgh, the city with which artist Alice Edith Ross was so strongly associated. The first edition of her Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, using FitzGerald’s first version, and with four coloured illustrations by her, was published by them in 1910 (Potter #77 – the date is on the title page.) (3) But this was only one poetry book amongst several published by them, for, at various times and with various reprints and revised issues, with different covers and often undated, she also illustrated works by Tennyson, Robert Browning, Matthew Arnold, Christina Rossetti, J.G. Whittier, Longfellow and Ella Wheeler Wilcox, not to mention the quintessentially Scottish poet Robert Burns. (Equally Scottish was the popular story about a dog, Rab and his Friends, by Edinburgh physician Dr. John Brown, an undated edition of which she also illustrated for Nimmo & Co., probably first published in 1912.)
Thus far the Edinburgh connection, but that Alice Ross the illustrator was the same as Alice Edith Ross the artist is further confirmed by the following.
In the magazine The Gentlewoman on 4 March 1916 (p.34), under the heading “Studio Club ‘At–Home’”, we learn that “Miss Alice Ross, S.S.A.” was involved in a sale of paintings to raise funds for the Scottish Women’s First Aid Corps Convalescent Hospital. (Alice Edith Ross S.S.A. never married, so she would indeed have been a Miss Alice Ross S.S.A.)
In The Edinburgh Evening News on 12 November 1925 (p.9), under the heading “Scottish Women Artists – a New Exhibiting Society”, we read that “Miss Alice Ross” (no Edith) exhibited “a spirited study of donkeys and children” at the inaugural exhibition of the Society.
Finally, The Scotsman, on 5 January 1934 (p.7), reported that “Miss Alice Ross” (no Edith) sold “The Sheep Shearer” for £5 at an exhibition of the S.S.A. This is a clincher, because “The Sheep Shearer” is listed, as no.92, as one of the three works by Alice E. Ross of 18 Glenorchy Terrace, Edinburgh, in the S.S.A. Exhibition Catalogue for 1933 (the exhibition ran from 25 November 1933 to 6 January 1934 (2).)
Thus it is well–nigh certain that the artist Alice Edith Ross was also the illustrator Alice Ross, and I will assume this in what follows.
To be honest, I don’t find Alice Ross’s coloured illustrations very interesting, for they are rather literal in their approach to the text – stolidly conventional art, in other words.
To begin with her four illustrations for the dated 1910 edition of The Rubaiyat, Fig.1a is the frontispiece, and perhaps relates to quatrain 38 (“the Stars are setting and the Caravan / Starts for the Dawn of Nothing &c”); Fig.1b clearly relates to quatrain 11; Fig.1c to quatrain 17; and Fig.1d, the most imaginative, to quatrain 48. These last three, unlike the frontispiece, bear captions and (often, but not always!) face the pages which bear their respective quatrains. Later, undated, and presumably cheaper, editions contained only one of the four illustrations, used as a frontispiece. The sequence and dating of the various later editions is far from clear, however (4).
[The images can be browsed here.]
Turning now to a sample of her illustrations for the various poetry books mentioned above, Fig.2 shows her illustration of Robert Burns’s poem “John Anderson my Jo”, taken from an undated edition of Auld Lang Syne – Songs of Burns, but the copy used here bearing a gift inscription dated Christmas 1919; Fig.3 shows an illustration of Tennyson’s poem “Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere” from an edition of Selections from Tennyson whose title–page bears the date 1908; Fig.4 shows an illustration of Longfellow’s poem “The Village Blacksmith” from an undated edition of The Wreck of the “Hesperus” and Other Poems, but whose accession date in the British Library’s copy is 18 November 1910; and Fig.5 shows the frontispiece of an undated edition of Poems of Ella Wheeler Wilcox relating to the poem “An Old Fan”, which, though it bears a gift inscription dated Xmas 1945, is probably rather earlier in date.[Browse.]
Alice Ross’s first illustrated book published by Nimmo & Co., seems to have been Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland which contained five illustrations and which appeared in 1907 – it was undated but the acquisition date of the copy in the British Library is 18 December 1907, and a contemporary newspaper advert shows it to have been issued as a Christmas book for that year. Her illustrations for this are more inventive than most of her work, perhaps not surprisingly given the nature of the book itself, though it has to be said that they owe much to Tenniel’s original illustrations. Thus, Fig.6a shows Alice, the Mouse, the Dodo & other animals in the prelude to the Caucus Race; Fig.6b shows Alice, the Duchess & the Queen in the prelude to the Mock Turtle’s Story; and Fig.6c shows Alice with the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon. [Browse.]
A few years later, again for Nimmo & Co., she illustrated Grimm’s fairy tales and those of Hans Christian Andersen – both editions undated but both with accession dates of 14 April 1910 in the British Library’s copies. Some of these illustrations, again by the nature of the text, almost necessarily invoke more imagination – Fig.7 is “Little Ida’s Flowers” from Hans Andersen, for example. Similarly more imaginative are her illustrations for Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market” – Fig.8 is an example – again from an undated edition of Goblin Market and Other Poems, but with the British Library’s accession date of 18 November 1910.
But amidst the sea of colour illustrations she did for Nimmo & Co., I was much intrigued by Poems of Ella Wheeler Wilcox with “pencil drawings by Alice Ross” first published by them in 1912 (the title page bears the date – later editions are undated.) There are eight illustrations in total. The frontispiece, shown in Fig.9a, illustrates the poem “To Marry, or not to Marry”; Fig.9b illustrates “The Beautiful Land of Nod”; Fig.9c illustrates “Babyland”; and Fig.9d illustrates “No classes!” (a poem against class distinction, as the caption indicates – the disdainful look of superiority on the face of the ‘refined’ young lady on the left is very skilfully done.) These, and her other four drawings, though still conventional in style, for me at least, hold much more appeal than her colour illustrations. But then she wouldn’t be the first artist who was much better in black and white than colour. [Browse.]
Returning to Alice (Edith) Ross the artist, now, many of her paintings have survived to turn up in auctions from time to time, though most seem to be undated. Fig.10a (“At the Seaside”), Fig.10b (“Highland Sheep Shearers”), Fig.10c (“Mussel Gatherers on Oban Beach”) and Fig.10d (“Rabbits Feeding”) are four examples. As with her coloured book illustrations, though these paintings do show considerable artistic skill, I must confess to finding them rather dull. But each to his – or her – own, as the saying goes.
Note 1: Under the pseudonym of Herbert Martyne his book Poems was published by James Maclehose in Glasgow in 1876, a new edition of it being issued under his real name by the same publisher in 1881. In the same year, again under his real name, the same publisher issued his Waifs: a Handful of Essays and Sketches, and in 1885, his book The Fine Arts and Arts of Design: their Origin, Nature and Influence with an Essay on Recreations, Ancient and Modern, Public and Private, this again under his real name.
Note 2: My thanks are due to Kirstie Meehan and Rowan Berry at the National Galleries of Scotland, for supplying this and other information.
Note 3: For Nimmo, see also Potter ## 42, 49 & 50. Though Potter nowhere says so, at least one edition illustrated by Alice Ross was published in America by H. M. Caldwell of Boston. The only copy I have come across has a cover identical to Fig.11a, but is undated.
Note 4: As regards the first Nimmo edition with its title–page dated 1910, I know of two varieties of cover: Fig.11a a paper cover and Fig.11b a suede cover. This first edition contained all four illustrations plus an edited version of FitzGerald’s Notes, but not an Introductory Essay on Omar. Finally, this edition had blank end papers.
Fig.12a is the cloth cover of an edition whose title–page is dated 1911, and so is presumably the second edition. Like the first edition, this contained all four illustrations, but unlike the first edition, it contained both FitzGerald’s Introductory Essay on Omar (actually that of his fourth version) as well as the edited version of his Notes. Finally, again unlike the first edition, it had the pictorial end–papers by J. Blair shown in Fig.12b (front) and Fig.12c (back.) [He was John Blair (1850–1934), the Edinburgh–based landscape watercolour artist.] To complicate matters, Fig.12d is the suede cover of an edition whose title–page is also dated 1911, with the same end–papers, but unlike the cloth covered edition, it contained only one illustration, used as a frontispiece (Fig.1d in the example pictured here.) [Browse.]
After 1911 the reissues seem to have been undated, but followed the format of the second of the 1911 editions, including pictorial end–papers (often those used in the 1911 editions, though various ones do seem to have been used at different times), but with variations in the single illustration used as the frontispiece. Fig.13 is an example with a suede cover which uses Fig.1c as its frontispiece and another example with exactly the same cover has Fig.1d as its frontispiece, this second copy bearing a gift inscription dated 1914. Both of these have the end–papers of the 1911 editions.
Nor is this all, for, following the same format, the undated leather–covered edition shown in Fig.14a had as its single illustration frontispiece Fig.1a, but had the different end papers shown in Fig.14b (both front and back.) In the bottom left–hand corner the last two letters of Blair are just visible. To add to the mix, another copy known to me is identical to this one, save that it has a cover like that in Fig.13, and yet another has the cloth cover shown in Fig.14c. This last is particularly interesting as it has retained its original dust–jacket (Fig.14d) whose design incorporates the full painting from which the end-papers of Fig.14b have been cropped – the full signature of John Blair is visible in the bottom left hand corner of the back of the jacket. From this, too, we see that this copy of The Rubaiyat, was one of “Nimmo’s Clyde Classics.” though this is not mentioned inside the book, and without the dust–jacket you would not know it. Incidentally, The Rubaiyat was also one of Nimmo’s Miniatures (Fig.14e) as well as one of their large type Ruby Series (Fig.14f.) In both cases the relevant series name was clearly indicated in the book, either facing or on the title–page respectively. The former was not illustrated by Ross and had wallpaper–like floral end–papers, but I have never seen a copy of the latter. The Rubaiyat was also one of their Edina Bibelots Series (Fig.14g), the series name again being clearly indicated on the title–page. This was not illustrated by Ross, but, as the listing tells us, she did do the end–papers for it. (“Edina Bibelots”, by the way, means novelty books from Edinburgh.) [Browse.]
Finally, Fig.15a is the dust–jacket of yet another undated edition, attached at the spine to a plain blue card cover beneath it. The dust–jacket illustration, here a detail from Fig.1a (details from the other three illustrations are used in other copies), is the only illustration in the book, whose content is basically the unadorned text of FitzGerald’s first version, with neither FitzGerald’s Introduction nor his Notes. The unsigned end–papers are shown in Fig.15b (front) and Fig.15c (back). In fact, these end papers are by Ross, as they are used in the Edina Bibelot Series, though, confusingly, this particular copy is not the Edina Bibelot one, since its verses are not in a tinted panel in accordance with Fig.14g, and the series is not named on the title–page.
This is by no means all, but enough has been said to show the complexity of the series of undated Rubaiyat editions issued by Nimmo & Co. over the years, a series which at present it is quite impossible to document fully, and which seems, to put it mildly, to have something of a willy–nilly element to it
The cover–style of Fig.11a was widely used with other Nimmo poetry publications illustrated by Ross – Fig.16a (Robert Burns), Fig.16b (Ella Wheeler Wilcox, with coloured illustrations) & Fig.16c (Christina Rossetti) are three examples, all undated, but as indicated in the main body of this essay, the first (from which Fig.2 is taken) bears a gift inscription dated 1919; the second (from which Fig.5 is taken), a gift inscription dated 1945; and the third (from which Fig.8 is taken) is datable to 1910 by the British Library’s acquisition date. Likewise the cover–style of Fig.13 was used in other volumes – Fig.17a (John Brown) and Fig.17b (Ella Wheeler Wilcox, pencil illustrations) are two examples. Neither is dated and neither bears any gift inscription or library accession date. The cover type of Fig.11b, though, seems not to have been recycled much – at least, I have only seen it used in an undated Ross–Nimmo edition of Browning’s Pied Piper of Hamelin, but with a gift inscription dated 1916. [Browse.]
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In addition to Kirstie Meehan and Rowan Berry, cited in note 2 above, I must also thank Jos Coumans, Fred Diba, Joe Howard, Sandra Mason & Bill Martin, and Roger Paas for supplying details and scans of their various copies of The Rubaiyat illustrated by Alice Ross.
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