Virginia Frances Sterrett illustrated three books: The Arabian Nights, Tanglewood Tales, and Old French Fairy Tales. Her work is enjoying a renaissance of interest, and is becoming increasingly difficult to find. Illustrations from all three books are presented here. Virginia died in 1931, at the age of 30, of tuberculosis. She left incomplete a set of illustrations to Myths and Legends.

Book Illustrations

First Book: Old French Fairy Tales

Virginia Frances Sterrett's first commission came in 1919. She was commissioned by Penn Publishing Company to illustrate the Comptesse de Ségur's Old French Fairy Tales. She was 19 and received $500 for the eight watercolors and 16 pen and ink drawings, with a supplemental $250 for a colored drawing for the cover and ink drawings for the end papers and boards.

Old French Fairy Tales

Second Book: Tanglewood Tales

In 1921, the Penn Publishing Company again commissioned her to illustrate an edition of Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Tanglewood Tales, with its stories from Greek mythology was a favorite children's book of the time, one also illustrated by Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac, Anne Anderson and other Golden Age illustrators. Four images, from a early edition of Tanglewood Tales, are missing and we're working on that; otherwise we believe all the color illustrations are here.

Tanglewood Tales

Last Book: Arabian Nights

In 1923, Virginia began work on what was to be her last completed commission and the work that is considered her masterpiece, a set of illustrations to Arabian Nights. The set consists of 16 color illustrations, 20 black and white in drawings, a colored picture for the front cover and a drawing for the inside boards. Due to ill health, the illustrations took her three years to complete. It was published in 1928.

Arabian Nights