Within the seeing, and hearing, of children: Ted Hughes's and Leonard Baskin's illustrated books for young readers

Abstract

Ted Hughes sought collaborators throughout his literary life: from Jim Downer in the fifties to Sylvia Plath, Peter Brook, Fay Godwin, Peter Keen, Seamus Heaney and Leonard Baskin. Despite this, the majority of critical attention focuses on Hughes in isolation, and some of the work that Hughes and his collaborators saw as a creative fusion of word and visual image has been re-published without the drawings, paintings or photographs. In this article, we argue that if one wishes to appreciate the full richness and scope of Hughes's achievement it is necessary to appreciate the ingenuity and visionary subtleties of his many collaborations with visual artists.