Henry Justice Ford (1860-1941) was the illustrator for most of the immensely popular fairy tales and other stories retold by Andrew Lang. The covers of Lang's books were based on Ford's illustrations.

One of the most popular illustrators of the Edwardian period, Hugh Thomson (1860-1920) made eighteenth-century English literature his own. After 1895, he not only created illustrations for many beloved works, but designed their bookbindings, which became later known as "Cranfords," after his edition of the novel by Elizabeth Gaskell. With their densely patterned covers, these volumes, which were published for Christmas, are spiritual heirs of the gift books from the 1840s and 1850s.