The Children Kneel and Pray

By Little Paris Fine Arts

This illustration is from page 9 of the book of Henry Longfellow’s epic poem "Evangeline A Tale of Acadie" (Bogue , London, 1850), the first known illustrated version. Jane Eleanor Benham Hay (1829 –1904) was a British painter and illustrator, a virtual pioneer of Victorian female artists. British publisher Henry Richard Vizetelly(1820 – 1894) was the book’s engraver. The image was scanned from an original first edition copy of the book. Part the First, Canto I. “Many a youth, as he knelt in the church and opened his missal, Fixed his eyes upon her as the saint of his deepest devotion;”