Madness in Crowds: The Teeming Mind of Harrison Cady

Beehive, 2019. First edition. Hardcover. New. 176pp. Folio [36 cm] Boards. In the publisher's shipping box, with dings to the egdes (contents inside are undamaged). With a sticker and postcard tucked in. May require extra postage due to weight. Famed artist and publisher Denis Kitchen and his daughter Violet Kitchen have created the first-ever comprehensive examination of this great artist, while collecting an amazing array of 300 generally scarce images. Harrison Cady (1877-1970) was one of the definitive magazine illustrators and cartoon artists of the first half of the 20th century. He created countless overflowing worlds of anthropomorphic lives: the Peter Rabbit Sunday page, the Happy Chaps for the magazine St. Nicholas, and illustrations that brought to life dozens of the Thornton Burgess books, filled with talking woodland animals and beloved by readers.

Cady's work was translated into jigsaw puzzles, cans, games,and comic books, among many other forms. Each drawing is bustling with life and energy and detail and chaos...of bugs and critters! Each character came armed with their own distinct personality and a sense of humor that projected off the page. He especially loved small animals and insects, spawning and exploring vast eco-systems of creeping crawlers with human affectations: beetle ballerinas, ladybugs in spats and umbrellas, fiddle-playing mosquitoes.

A committed political progressive, Cady frequently made cartoons about women's suffrage, injustice and the exploitation of the working classes. In his long and productive career, he laid an endless array of visual feasts out for the eyes of readers and art-appreciators all over the world.

But, as is too often the case with illustrators and cartoon artists, his work faded from memory very quickly once his career ended. Though there remains a loyal cadre of fans and collectors, trading old tear-sheets and weathered magazine clippings, his name is largely unknown by modern lovers of illustration, cartooning and graphic art.

With luscious, 100lb uncoated cotton paper and the inimitable design work of Paul Kepple and Headcase Design (who also designed The Temple of Silence), Madness in Crowds is a rare collectible tome fit for reading, treasuring, and passing down to future generations as part of a carefully curated library. Also includes a DRM-free digital edition of the book.