At the end of the 19th century, picture books by English artist Kate Greenaway were incredibly popular. Some illustrators began to imitate and, at times, directly copy her style. Greenaway’s first book of nursery rhymes Under the Window, in which she authored both texts and illustrations, was published in 100,000 copies and immediately translated into German and French.

The artist attracted young readers not only with simple cute poems and beautiful illustrations, but also by the fact that she had come up with new characters and dressed them in costumes, which very soon began to be used by designers to develop new models of children’s clothing.

Greenaway’s style was both greatly admired and rather sharply criticized. Her love for flowers and especially for children’s clothing worked out in the finest details became her distinctive feature.

Kate Greenaway lived a short life and, to the very end, remained a child in the soul. Memories of a happy childhood inspired her in her work.

Having a photographic memory, Kate could restore in detail the dresses she had seen as a child, and even come up with some of her own. She loved children’s fashion of the turn of the 18th—19th centuries and dressed her characters in costumes of that period. Moreover, her invented outfits, surprisingly, greatly influenced the tastes of the public and the work of designers of children’s clothing of the late 19th—20th centuries. Rich customers began to order clothes depicted in illustrations to their favorite poems.

Little Kate often spent summers with relatives in Nottinghamshire. On the pages of her book Under the Window, she lovingly reproduced scenes of rural life, idyllic landscapes typical for England, rural children’s activities.

Characters of Kate Greenaway’s illustrations are often turned back to us. This is an unexpected move, but it becomes understandable when the text speaks on behalf of the author who looks at the characters leaving or exiting from somewhere. However, knowing the artist’s love for clothing details, we can assume that this technique has another purpose: to show the outfit not only from the front but also from the back, which is so important for a fashion designer. The figures of poems’ characters depicted from the back are no less expressive and elegant than those face forward or side-drawn.

The book has several poems with not individual figures, but children’s processions depicted.

One of them is about a bird’s funeral. This is very important for children. They make the bird’s funeral look like a man’s funeral they have probably seen. A sad procession of children, with willow branches (similar to palm ones), accompanies the dead bird, laid in flowers. It is carried on a handkerchief, four ends of which are gripped, like a coffin’s handles, by three girls and one boy. Full of importance, a boy with a shovel, who dug the grave, behaves not as a gravedigger, but as a priest. The whole scene is filled with solemn sadness.

The highest English award in the field of children’s book illustration bears the name of Kate Greenaway. The first Kate Greenaway Medal was awarded in 1956 to Edward Ardizzone for his book Tim All Alone.