Marguerite de Angeli
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Marguerite de Angeli (1889–1987) was an American author and illustrator celebrated for her contributions to children's literature during a career that stretched from the 1920s into the 1980s. Born Marguerite Lofft on March 14, 1889, in Lapeer, Michigan, she originally trained as a singer before turning to visual art. She met fellow music lover and violinist John Daily de Angeli after dropping out of high school to work as a professional singer, and they married in 1910. Once settled in Collingswood, New Jersey, she met Maurice Bower, who became her artistic mentor and in 1921 encouraged her to illustrate Sunday-school papers for local churches. That early work led to steady illustration commissions for national magazines and, eventually, to writing and illustrating her own books.
De Angeli became one of the most respected figures in mid-twentieth-century American children's publishing. She wrote and illustrated twenty-eight of her own books, and illustrated more than three dozen books and numerous magazine stories and articles for other authors. Her most honored work, The Door in the Wall, received the Newbery Medal in 1950, and she also earned Caldecott Honors for Yonie Wondernose and her Book of Nursery and Mother Goose Rhymes, along with a Newbery Honor for Black Fox of Lorne.
Her illustrated books are particularly valued by collectors because of her richly researched stories about diverse cultures, including the Pennsylvania Dutch and African Americans, work that made her a pioneer of the concept of multicultural children's books at a time when few authors addressed such subjects for young readers. Original and early editions of her hand-illustrated volumes remain sought after for their historical significance and artistic craftsmanship.
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