“Once Upon a Time” is a phrase that we know means our imaginations are about to be taken on an adventure. Fairy tales, myths, and legends often begin with these words, and what follows are fantastical, colourful, absurd tales filled with all sorts of people, animals, and otherworldly creatures. Writers across the Western world began collecting and transcribing local folklore during the 18th and early 19th centuries, and these collected works were hugely popular. In the last quarter of the 19th century, several social and technological advances led to a boom in illustrated volumes of these tales, in what would come to be known as “the Golden Age of Illustration”.
