More interesting than any of these early efforts were Rackham’s four halftone illustrations and cover design for the first edition in book form of The Dolly Dialogues by Anthony Hope (1894) which had originally appeared without illustrations in the Westminster Gazette. These drawings, stilted as they were – the cover design (see page 41) is the best of them, being in the Beggarstaff manner – served to link Rackham’s name for the first time with a work of literary merit. Soon afterwards came drawings for Washington Irving’s The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (1894), Tales of a Traveller (1895), and Bracebridge Hall (1896); illustrations in Little Folks (1896) for a story by his friend Maggie Browne; charming work for Fanny Burney’s Evelina (1898); capable designs for various gardening and nature books; and conventional romanticism for cloak-and-dagger novels by H. S. Merriman and Stanley Weyman.

Rackham’s work in the ’nineties displayed versatility and experiment. The journalist predominated, it is true, with his large output of factual reportage of high quality. But at the same time a remarkable draughtsman was developing; his pencil studies of old men, dated 1895, in Mrs Harris Rackham’s collection, show him to have learned from Charles Keene (see page 47). Beardsley had become another considerable influence (Rackham parodied Beardsley engagingly in the Westminster Budget of 20th July 1894, but Beardsley was nonetheless a serious influence on his style), and with him the whole German school from Dürer to Menzel and Hans Thoma. The fanciful and poetic element gradually supplanted the conventional as Rackham’s technique developed.

Before the ’nineties were out, Rackham had to his credit, besides many drawings for Cassell’s Magazine, Little Folks and other papers, the illustrations for two books published by J. M. Dent which were to prove more important to his career than anything he had hitherto produced. These were The Ingoldsby Legends of 1898 (see page 23) and Charles and Mary Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare (1899).