"Fanny Y. Cory --By Herself"

was how The Critic magazine

captioned this self-portrait in

its July 1900 issue.

F.Y. Cory Publishers, Inc.

Fanny Young Cory was born in 1877 and in 1895 an 18 year-old Miss Cory attended the Metropolitan school of Fine Arts in New York City. By the turn of the century, she was one of the best known illustrators in the country. She did covers and illustration for St. Nicholas, Life, Scribner's, Century, Harper's Bazaar and The Saturday Evening Post. She also illustrated many books including Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1902) by Lewis Carrol, and several books by Frank L. Baum, author of The Wizard of OZ. Who's Who of American Women listed F.Y. Cory in their First Edition, Volume One.

Fanny Y. Cory, after marrying Fred Cooney in 1904, resided on a ranch near Helena, Montana, while raising their three children. In the mid 1920s she moved into newspaper cartooning and by 1936, King Features Syndicate carried both her famous "Sonnysayings" and her "Little Miss Muffet" strip in newspapers throughout the country. She was listed in King Features' Famous Artists and Writers. As a diversion during this period of the late 1920s and early 1930s, Fanny Y. Cory painted in watercolor what she considered her finest work. We now call this collection the "Fairy Series" of which these reproductions are a part.

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