One great pleasure in collecting old children's books comes from the exceptional quality of their illustrations. Consider the charm of Kate Greenaway's iconic little girls; the wit and whimsy of Edward Lear's drawings; the bold compositions of N.C. Wyeth; John Tenniel's uniquely apposite images that bring "Alice in Wonderland" to visual life; and, perhaps most particularly, the elaborately detailed work of artists like Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac, whose best achievements approach the quality of the fine art of its day.

Dulac was a Frenchman who spent most of his career in England. Born in Toulouse in 1882, he studied law during the day at Toulouse University while taking art classes at the nearby Ecole des Beaux Arts in the evenings. When his designs began to win prizes at the Ecole, he abandoned his detested law studies and started attending art school full time.

He moved first to Paris, then to London at the age of 22. His first commission, from the publisher J.M. Dent, was to illustrate the collected work of the Bronte sisters. From that point on his career flourished. He formed an association with the Leicester Galley, which would commission illustrative paintings from the artist and then sell the rights to publisher Hodder & Stoughton, who would publish deluxe editions of the books while the gallery sold the artwork. This mutually beneficial arrangement continued for many years, with the release of one luxury volume per year.

Dulac is best known for his enchanting illustrations of fairy tales and other fanciful children's stories, such as "The Sleeping Beauty and Other Fairy Tales," "Stories from Hans Christian Anderson," "Edmund Dulac's Fairy Book" and "Stories from the Arabian Nights," the latter a tour de force that included 50 color images. Dulac is also known for an edition of Shakespeare's "The Tempest," with 40 color illustrations, "The Rubiyat of Omar Khayyam," "The Bells and Other Poems by Edgar Allan Poe," "Princess Badoura" and one of his later masterworks, "The Kingdom of the Pearl."

A brilliant, subtle colorist, the debonair and stylish Dulac had a passion for the Orient and Near East and was drawn toward mysticism and the occult, as reflected in particular in the "Arabian Nights" illustrations, which, with its subdued pastel colors and attention to detail of both costume and settings, solidified his reputation. He used watercolor and gouache, with touches of pen and ink or pencil, sometimes lightly scribbling with a coarse ochre crayon, often favoring a rich trademark blue background.

Working as he did during the first two decades of the 20th century, Dulac was able to utilize the achievements of the industrial revolution: the technical means of faithfully reproducing the palettes of paintings and distributing them to a wide market. Especially in the period between 1905 and World War I, deluxe book publishing was a thriving industry, with children's books bought and collected by adults as symbols of taste and affluence.

After the Great War, the age of the deluxe-edition illustrated book virtually came to an end, and Dulac went on to produce a number of theatrical posters, as well as costume and set designs, portraits, bookplates and such decorative objects as medals and chocolate boxes.

An interesting new book, "The Age of Enchantment: Beardsley, Dulac and Their Contemporaries 1890-1930" by Rodney Engen (Dulwich Picture Gallery/Scala, $45), takes a look at the era of fantasy illustration in Britain, the heyday of romantic exoticism, as displayed in the pages of lavish coffee-table books. Beginning with the stylized masterpieces of Aubrey Beardsley and his disciples Laurence Housman, Charles Ricketts, Sidney Sime and Harry Clarke, it goes on to consider the works of the Glasgow School and the influential Arthur Rackham, Charles Robinson, the Detmold brothers, Willy Pogany, Kay Nielson - and Edmund Dulac.

Linda Rosenkrantz has edited Auction magazine and authored 18 books, including "Cool Names for Babies" and "The Baby Name Bible" (St. Martin's Press; www.babynamebible.com). She cannot answer letters personally.

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