SKETCHBOOKS: moleskine 001

My favorite books when I was young were a series of hardcover collections of fairy tales and myths. I believe the series was called My Bookhouse or something like that, and each of the twelve volumes had a different title. Additionally, the volumes grew more complex as the series progressed. The first few were primarily Mother Goose rhymes and Aesop's Fables but near the end the books contained heavily abridged versions of Dante's Inferno and The Ring of the Nibelung. Does anyone reading this know of these books?

One tale I remember very vividly, although only in patches, is the tale of St. George and the Dragon. The illustration, possibly by Willy Pogany, made quite an impact on me. It was one of the most heroic and frightening images I had ever seen as a child. One lone but very brave knight confronting certain death in hand to hand battle with an enormous green dragon. I remember the colors and the textures more than anything else, and will always associate the red and white of St. George with the bright green of that dragon.

This sketch is a long way from where I want it to be, but it's a start and it draws on some of those elements I remember from those long lost books. Here is St. George.