Shelley’s The Sensitive Plant is a lengthy poem written after the death of Percy and Mary Shelley’s first child. Laurence Housman illustrates the sombre garden scenes in a minutely detailed manner, and manages to incorporate some concerns of his own. Pan isn’t mentioned in the poem but Housman adds a Pan figure which he describes in a note as “the garden deity”, and a symbol of nature untamed.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Laurence Housman’s End of Elfintown
• The Reflected Faun