Lucy Crane

Englishwoman Lucy Crane (1842 - 1882), sister of artist Walter Crane, was a translator, an artist and lecturer on art. From an early age Lucy Crane showed considerable taste and skill in drawing and colouring. Circumstances, however, turned her attention to general educational work. She became an accomplished musician, and was not only distinguished for her delicacy of touch as an executant, but also for the classical refinement of her taste and her knowledge of the earlier Italian and English....See more

Englishwoman Lucy Crane (1842 - 1882), sister of artist Walter Crane, was a translator, an artist and lecturer on art. From an early age Lucy Crane showed considerable taste and skill in drawing and colouring. Circumstances, however, turned her attention to general educational work. She became an accomplished musician, and was not only distinguished for her delicacy of touch as an executant, but also for the classical refinement of her taste and her knowledge of the earlier Italian and English. She devoted her leisure to literature, writing in both verse and prose. She contributed to the Argosy, and wrote the original verses ('How Jessie was Lost, ' 'The Adventures of Puffy, ' 'Annie and Jack in London, ' and others) and rhymed versions of well-known nursery legends for her brother Walter's coloured toy-books. The selection and arrangement of the accompaniments to the nursery songs in the 'Baby's Opera' and 'Baby's Bouquet' are also due to her; and a new translation by her of the Hausmarchen of the Brothers Grimm was illustrated by her brother, Walter Crane. In the last few years of her life Lucy Crane delivered lectures in London and the north on Art and the Formation of Taste, which after her death were illustrated and published by Thomas and Walter Crane (1882), together with a short and appreciative notice of the author. She died on 31 March 1882, at the house of a friend at Bolton-le-Moors See less