This poster promotes the 1896 “Midsummer Number” of St. Nicholas magazine, published between 1873 and 1941 (first by Scribner’s before it was taken over by the Century Company in 1881). The magazine was intended for readers aged five to eighteen and was edited by Mary Mapes Dodge “To give clean, genuine fun to children of all ages” and “To give reading matter which every parent may pass to his children unhesitatingly.” The image reflects the Victorian obsession with fairies and refers broadly to the fairy characters in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. But the delicately drawn forms and pastel colors of the composition appear to have been influenced by the work of some of the British children’s book illustrators of the time, most notably Kate Greenaway and Walter Crane, whose Flora’s Feast: A Fairy’s Festival of Flowers was published in 1889. While Theodore Hampe earned an honorary mention for his entry The Century’s poster competition of 1897, this poster for St. Nicholas magazine appears to be the only surviving one by him.