Monday, May 21, 2012

Elinore Blaisdell


Elinore Blaisdell (b. Brooklyn, New York, 15 October 1900; d. Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 22 November 1994)

American artist and prolific illustrator of books.  Born in Brooklyn, New York, on 15 October 1900 (not 1904, as appears in reference books), Blaisdell studied at the Art Students League and Naum M. Los School of Art, New York, in addition to the Slade School of Fine Art in London.  In 1928 she married Melrich [“Mike”] Vonelm Rosenberg (1905-1937), an author and publisher’s representative.  Blaisdell illustrated some of her husband’s books, including a biography Eleanor of Aquitaine (1937), and With Sword and Song (1937), the tale of a fifteen-year-old boy in medieval France. Rosenberg died of a heart attack at age 32. The couple had no children, and Blaisdell, who always used her own name professionally, never remarried.

Blaisdell edited and illustrated one anthology for which she merits special consideration here.  Tales of the Undead: Vampires and Visitants (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1947) qualifies as the precursor to the familiar modern themed anthologies of vampire stories. Though its contents are not solely vampire stories (it includes stories of other types of the undead, defined as “the unearthly being which is neither ghost nor living”), they are in the majority.  Classics like Le Fanu’s “Carmilla,” Gautier’s “Clarimonde,” and F. Marion Crawford’s “For the Blood Is the Life,” appear along with more recent tales, many from pulp magazines like Weird Tales, by authors such as H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Seabury Quinn, and Robert Bloch.  Each of the twenty-three selections has an illustration by Blaisdell. 

According to the dust-wrapper blurb, Blaisdell had become a devoted reader of supernatural stories at the age of seven, when she discovered Poe, Hawthorne, and Maupassant in her father’s library.  She read “several thousand stories in all and selected each in this collection for its particular appeal and excellence.”

NB: An earlier version of this entry appeared in my column “Notes on Neglected Fantasists”, Fastitocalon no. 1 (2010).  

8 comments:

  1. Hi, this is a great article. Can you point me in the direction of more information about Blaisdell? Not sure where to start.

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  2. I was inspired to do this piece because I couldn't find out much about her. What I presented comes from various genealogical sources, and info in her book.

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  3. She was my art teacher for a number of years in New York
    We remained friends until she passed away. I still miss her.

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    1. She was well know for knowledge of period costumes.she also did window displays at many nyc stores..I have several of her original card designs and she designed cards for an American company and European card company. She also painted under a name Julia Keats because of contracts. She was a great friend

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    2. Douglas A. AndersonJuly 31, 2023 at 9:13 PM

      Thanks for writing. I will have a look to see what I can find about "Julia Keats"!

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  4. My sister has "Little Women",
    illustrated by Eleanore Blaisdell.
    Her work made the story more
    special. She knew how to draw
    personalities, and character.
    I am so glad that she is being
    recognized.
    Her work inspired me to draw;
    I made paper dolls from 10yrs old to when I was 16yrs.old..i still have them. Thank you Elinore!
    DAPHNE Homann June 8, 2023

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  5. tdjlpgb@gmail.com
    I just left a comment June8,2023

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  6. I entered Veitch my own name
    and date I guess I don't know how to enter. I don't see my comment

    ReplyDelete