The Three Mulla-Mulgars, 1919

Dorothy Pulis Lathrop

1891–1980

 

Dorothy Pulis Lathrop was born in Albany, New York. She studied art at the Teachers College of Columbia University in New York City and planned a career as an art teacher. She later studied at The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the Art Students League in New York City. Her first book, Japanese Prints, was published in 1919, although she received no payment for it, as the publisher went bankrupt. Beginning in 1919, she illustrated a new book almost every year, including Walter de la Mare’s The Three Mulla-Mulgars (1919), George MacDonald’s The Light Princess (1926) and the Princess and Curdie (1927). Rachel Field’s Hitty, Her First Hundred Years, which received the 1930 Newbery Award is probably her best-known book. In 1938, Lathrop was awarded the first Caldecott Medal for Animals of the Bible. In 1931, she began writing as well as illustrating children’s books, beginning with The Fairy Circus.

He jumped, he reared, he kicked, he plunged, he wriggled, he whinnied

The Three Mulla-Mulgars, 1919

He felt a sudden darkness above his head, and a cold terror crept over his skin

The Three Mulla-Mulgars, 1919

With sticks and staves and flaring torches they turned on the fierce birds that came sweeping and swirling out of the dark

The Three Mulla-Mulgars, 1919

The Wonderstone

The Three Mulla-Mulgars, 1919

The Queen of the Mountains is in the forest . . . with fingers of frost

The Three Mulla-Mulgars, 1919