Page 1 illustration from Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen
Stratton was born in Nowganj, Bundelkhand, Madhya Pradesh, India on 5 April 1867,[1] the daughter of a surgeon in the Indian military service John Proudfoot Stratton and Georgina Anne Anderson. Soon after Helen's birth, and following her father's retirement, the family moved to England, settling in Bath.[2] By 1891 Helen was in Kensington, London to attend art school,[3] where she became a follower of Art Nouveau in the style of the Glasgow School of Art. For many years she lived and worked as a book illustrator and painter in Kensington with her widowed mother and siblings.[4] Stratton remained unmarried and in the 1930s she returned to Bath, living at The Bungalow, Widcombe Hill. She died on 4 June 1961, age 95, at Cran Hill Nursing Home, Weston.[5]
From 1896 Stratton became well known for bold and imaginative pen and ink illustrations to classic tales, her first success being Norman Gale's Songs for Little People, of which The Bookseller wrote in 1896 "Miss Stratton has headed, tailed and bordered the verses with a series of exquisitely pictured fancies".[6] In 1898 she drew 167 illustrations for Walter Douglas Campbell's Beyond the Border, then a year later reached the peak of her illustration career with upwards of four hundred drawings for a finely crafted art nouveau quarto edition of The Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, published by George Newnes. In the same year she collaborated with William Heath Robinson and three other illustrators (A D McCormick, A L Davis and A E Norbury) to create hundreds of illustrations for The Arabian Nights Entertainments, initially published in sections, then later in a large quarto edition. Although initially noted for her black and white illustrations she also illustrated in watercolour for works such as H.C. Herbertson's Heroic Legends (1908) and Jean Lang's A Book of Myths (1915). Her work for The Princess and the GoblinbyGeorge MacDonald and its sequel The Princess and Curdie (1912) were particularly popular and have been frequently reprinted.[7]
Hans Christian Andersen – The Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen circa 400 B/W illustrations by Lemercier and Helen Stratton (who gets sole credit on the title page) (George Newnes, 1899)
Anonymous - The Arabian Nights Entertainments (contributor) (George Newnes, 1899)
George MacDonald – The Princess and Curdie 12 colour plates, 29 B/W (Blackie, 1912)
Crown Princess of Roumania, The Lily of Life, A Fairy Tale, preface by Sylvia Carmen, 18 colour plates (Hodder, 1913)
Ethel Carnie – The Lamp Girl and Other Stories (Headley Bros, 1913)
Jean Lang – A Book of Myths 20 colour plates (T.C. & E.C. Jack, 1915)
Eleanor Cecilia Barnes – As The Water Flows: A Record of Adventures in a Canoe on The Rivers and Trout Streams of Southern England 36 colour plates, B/W drawings and initials throughout (Grant Richards, 1920)
^Her birth/baptism is recorded in the India Office Collection at the British Library and has been indexed on the IGI (familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/FGQ2-BZ6)
^The 1871 census shows the family living in Henrietta Place, Grove Street, Bath.
^The 1891 census shows her boarding in Cromwell Road, Kensington.
^Both the 1901 and 1911 Censuses show the family at 113 Abingdon Road W, Kensington.
