Here’s another project between Dr. William Venable and Henry Farny. The Teacher’s Dream came out to good reviews in late 1880 (though the book wasn’t published until 1881) and told, through poetry and pictures, the story of a teacher’s dream. New York’s Independent newspaper wrote the following:
“The slender line of poetry which furnishes the cord on which to string the illustrations is from the pen of W. H. Venable. The illustrations, fifteen in number, are consistently designed by one artist, H. F. Farny, in the French manner, and creditably executed by various engravers. There is a dreamy, ‘village-churchyard’ tone in the verses, and the designs, without anywhere touching the line of genius, rise clearly above mediocritv.”
While not a glowing review, it probably got what it deserved, as there was a limited amount of poetry given the number of images. And, they aren’t Farny’s best illustrations, in my opinion, but they aren’t the worst either. They were good enough for the job at hand and likely put money in his pocket.
Two of the images in Teacher’s Dream, the “sledding scene” on page 9 and the “man in the middle of the road” on page 33, also appeared in the The Union of American Art and Poetry, which came out a year earlier in 1880. The captions below down’t appear on the pages with the images; instead they appear on a List-of-Illustrations page at the start of the book:
