Kate Greenaway's illustrations of children dressed in a somewhat archaic style and playing merrily amid sunshine and flowers was the inspiration for a style of dress and countless imitators. Needless to say her books were popular and have remained so. Born in London in 1846 she spent several impressionable years at Rolleston in Nottinghamshire. The memories of this period were her inspiration.
She attended art classes but despite this always had difficulty portraying the human figure. This did not prevent her from exhibiting her work and gaining work designing Christmas cards, valentines and work for Frederick Warne's series of toy-books. However much of this work was poorly printed as it was still in the early period of colour printing. Then in the late 1870s the colour printer Edmund Evans took an interest in her work. Evans was meticulous with his colour printing, with the mixing of colours and the justification of the various blocks to ensure clean lines. The combination of Greenaway and Evans was a success: her first book printed by him was Under the Window published for Christmas 1879, and despite selling for six shillings, a high price at the time, had an initial print run of 20,000 copies and sold out. A further 70, 000 copies followed as well as foreign language editions.
From this time Greenaway's work was always printed by Evans. She produced a book a year over the following decade as well as a series of almanacs between 1883 and 1897.
A, Apple Pie is a traditional alphabet rhyme. Greenaway's version was a success, reprinted many times.
The Kate Greenaway Medal was established by The Library Association in 1955, for distinguished illustration in a book for children.
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Greenaway, Kate, 1846-1901, A, apple pie. State Library of South Australia, accessed 23/01/2026, https://digital.collections.slsa.sa.gov.au/nodes/view/2199
