I don't know quite when the whole Disneyfied pretty in pink princess obsession of today started, but the regal fantasies of my girlhood were mostly scratchily drawn in monochrome and created by authors of a stature that I didn't know about at the time, such as Eleanor Farjeon and Rudyard Kipling. As with all the best fairy tales, there were often dark undercurrents. They included handsome princes, fairies and witches but, thank god, no overpowering pressure to be pretty or pink.
This was one of my favourite books:
It included the 'The Birthday of the Infanta' by Oscar Wilde, 'Princess September' by W. Somerset Maugham, and my favourite tale by E. Nesbit, 'Melisande'. The writing was, and not surprisingly, fantastic, and my sister and I were both enchanted. I was recently given a 1962 American copy of the book and it was an unexpected delight to revisit the worlds of a princess whose hair grew an inch every night, a princess who had no gravity and a princess who had the longest nose on earth. Here are some of the lovely inky images from it, by Beni Montresor, who not only illustrated and wrote children's books but was also a set designer as well as opera and film director. There's nothing pink nor frilly about these...
