EXTRACTS: Illustrators issue 12 © 2015 The Book Palace (96 PAGES in Full edition)

73 A selection of images reveal Sime's fascination with weird tableaux, made even more unsettling by his masterful use of atmospheric lighting. His flair for caricature, which led a variety of publications to commission him frequently to depict leading actors and entertainers of the day, is well to the fore in the drawing on the facing page. When you think of the great Victorian and Edwardian illustrators of fantasy and the macabre, the name Sidney H. Sime is probably not amongst the first that spring to mind. Though he was a close friend with Lord Dunsany, the influential Irish fantasy author, and his work as an illustrator was admired by none other than the great purveyor of modern menace, H. P. Lovecraft, Sime himself shunned the limelight, working for the love of his craft as opposed to monetary gain or public acclaim. Dig deeper, however, and you will discover a man who was as shaped by his early life experiences and the environment he grew up in, as he was keen in later life, to shut himself off from the world around him. Sidney H. Sime did not have the most auspicious of starts for a man whose eventual calling would lead him to a career, which at the time attracted those for whom money tended not to be a problem. Born around 1865 in the Hulme suburb of Manchester, Sime, though displaying a prodigious artistic talent from an early age, lived in an environment where hard work for the whole family was a way of life. The second of six children brought up by Scottish parents, the luxury of a formal education was not an option in Victorian, working-class Liverpool, where the family had moved when Sime was still young. During his formative years he would work