In Charles Dickens's "David Copperfield", an elderly widow Mrs. Gummidge, lives with the Peggotys (friends of David), constantly mourning for her husband & saying "I am a lone, lorn creature & everything goes contrary with me", which is her catch phrase. However after "Little" Emily's elopement, she becomes active & helps the family.
In "Alice in Wonderland", Alice meets a Mock Turtle, who is perpetually lachrymose, possibly because it's destiny is to end up as Turtle Soup. It's companion is the Gryphon, with which, it dances "a lobster quadrille".
Eeyore, the grey donkey in "Winnie the Pooh", another chronically depressed character, is always wallowing in self-pity. It feels the other animals in Hundred Acre Wood neglect it & even ill-treat it, probably with good reason, because when it falls into a stream (likely "bounced" into it by Tigger), to rescue it, the others drop a stone right on top of it, which it adroitly avoids.
Hundred Acre Wood is a magical world inhabited by author A. A. Milne's son Christopher Robin & his toys. They are firstly Winnie the Pooh, a small bear, "with very little brain", always thinking of his pots of honey & "a little something" (snack) even when he goes visiting & favourite activity being doing nothing. Next is the bossy Rabbit, the born organiser. The professorial Owl is the know all. The hyper-active "bouncy" Tigger debuts in the second volume, where the house at Pooh corner is built. The chronically depressed donkey Eeyore is perpetually sunk in self-pity. The smallest & most timid is the Piglet. Kanga & it's child Roo arrive before Tigger & are accepted after some initial hiccups.
These simple creatures inhabit the farm which is both comforting & terrifying with imaginary "Heffalumps." & "Wozzles". They go about their lives much the same way as Thoreau did in his self-built house (at Pooh corner?). If Thoreau self-consciously contemplates the simple life, Christopher Robin & his animals live instinctively in the Tao way, as Benjamin Hoff brilliantly analyses in his "The Tao of Pooh" & "The Te of Piglet." In fact, Hoff calls Thoreau the first "undeclared" Taoist! But Thoreau was immensely influenced by Hindu thought like his co-transcendalists Emerson & Whitman, profusely quoting from "Bhagawat Gita", "Vishnupurana", & the Vedas.
Fittingly, though his books are about Winnie the Pooh & Taoist philosophy, Hoff concludes with a paean to Gandhi, saying he put Taoist principles into practice & has shown the only way in which our world can be saved.
The artists who illustrated famous books became in many cases, inseparable from the authors themselves. The classic example being Gustav Dore, whose woodcuts for "Don Quixote" became so legendary that they have been collected together in a book of their own.
Then there is George Cruikshank, who illustrated "Grimm's Fairy Tales" & many other notable books. Arthur Rackham's illustrations for the above book & copious output put him among the all time greats. Ernest Shepard, the "Punch" cartoonist, became more famous as the picturiser of "Winnie the Pooh", much to his discomfiture.
His daughter Mary, illustrated the "Mary Poppins" books, pleasing even the
fastidious author, P. L. Travers, who harassed Walt Disney for 20 years & even then was dissatisfied with his film, which however found universal acclamation.
Foremost among these Illustrators is Sir John Tenniel, whose pictures for the Lewis Carroll oeuvre are immortal. Among the later ones is Inga Moore, who inspired by the Impressionists, illustrated memorable editions of "The Wind in the Willows" & "The Secret Garden" among others.
Not to be forgotten are the two authors who illustrated their own best selling books, Antoine de Saint-Exupery his "The Little Prince" & Beatrix Potter her "Peter Rabbit".
Driven by the recent spectacular advances in colour printing technology, many later artists like Anna Bond (Alice) & Guiliano Ferri (Aesop) have also illustrated many books in a contemporary, if quirky way.
In Charles Dickens's "David Copperfield", an elderly widow Mrs. Gummidge, lives with the Peggotys (friends of David), constantly mourning for her husband & saying "I am a lone, lorn creature & everything goes contrary with me", which is her catch phrase. However after "Little" Emily's elopement, she becomes active & helps the family.
