In the 1930s, William Heath Robinson (1872-1944) was known as "the gadget king" and he is still most widely remembered for his wonderfully humorous drawings and illustrations of highly ingenious contraptions. This book includes over a hundred of his original works. Robinson's ambition was to become a landscape painter but he was forced to follow his brothers into book illustration, where his reputation was rapidly established. The creator of inimitable illustrations for poetry by Poe and Kipling, Andersen's Fairy Tales, A Midsummer Night's Dream, de la Mare's Peacock Pie, The Water Babies, and Perrault's Fairy Tales, he is ranked alongside Rackham and Dulac, achieving classic status around the world. He is also loved for the children’s books that he both wrote and illustrated, The Adventures of Uncle Lubin and Bill the Minder.