Smith of Wootton Major, first published in 1967, is a novella by J. R. R. Tolkien. It tells the tale of a Great Cake, baked for the once in twenty-four year Feast of Good Children. The Master Cook, Nokes, hides some trinkets in the cake for the children to find; one is a star he found in an old spice box. A boy, Smith, swallows the star. On his tenth birthday the star appears on his forehead, and he starts to roam the Land of Faery. After twenty-four years the Feast comes around again, and Smith surrenders the star to Alf, the new Master Cook. Alf bakes the star into a new Great Cake for another child to find.
First edition front cover; the illustration extends over the spine to the back cover.
Black and white illustration, as requested by Tolkien, by Pauline Baynes of Smith and his family for the first edition, 1967.
Josh B. Long likens the Faery Queen with lilies to the Virgin Mary. Glazed terracotta plaque The Virgin of the Lilies, Della Robbia family workshop, 16th century
Pauline Diana Baynes was an English illustrator, author, and commercial artist. She contributed drawings and paintings to more than 200 books, mostly in the children's genre. She was the first illustrator of some of J. R. R. Tolkien's minor works, including Farmer Giles of Ham, Smith of Wootton Major, and The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. She became well-known for her cover illustrations for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and for her poster map with inset illustrations, A Map of Middle-earth. She illustrated all seven volumes of C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, from the first book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Gaining a reputation as the "Narnia artist", she illustratred spinoffs like Brian Sibley's The Land of Narnia. In addition to work for other authors, including illustrating Roger Lancelyn Green's The Tales of Troy and Iona and Peter Opie's books of nursery rhymes, Baynes created some 600 illustrations for Grant Uden's A Dictionary of Chivalry, for which she won the Kate Greenaway Medal. Late in her life she began to write and illustrate her own books, with animal or Biblical themes.
Even in her old age, Baynes never forgot the sights and sounds of Mussoorie.
An illustration by Edmund Dulac, one of Baynes's inspirations
An illustration by Arthur Rackham. In 1961, Tolkien urged Baynes to "avoid the Scylla of Blyton and the Charybdis of Rackham - though to go to wreck on the latter would be the less evil fate".
Baynes's illustration The Hoard for J. R. R. Tolkien's 1962 book The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. The image was Baynes's favourite among the book's illustrations, but it disappointed Tolkien as he felt both the figures were implausible: the knight should have had a shield and helmet, while the dragon should have been watching the cave's entrance.