From book design to the suffrage workshop
Born in Bromsgrove in 1865, Housman studied art in London. In the 1890s he designed illustrations and book decorations, and a connection with Aubrey Beardsley brought him into the publishing circle of John Lane. As his eyesight deteriorated he devoted more of his career to writing, ranging from fairy tales to plays about Queen Victoria.
Laurence and Clemence helped found the Suffrage Atelier in London in 1909. Its members made posters, postcards and printed images that circulated arguments for the vote. Woodblock printing and stencilling, familiar workshop processes, gave their designs a public life outside the book trade.
Two crafts in The Were-Wolf
Clemence wrote The Were-Wolf and engraved Laurence’s drawings on wood. The lines printed on the page passed through both their hands. Their collaboration differs again from Princess Badoura and Stories from the Arabian Nights, where Laurence retold the tales and Edmund Dulac illustrated them.
