Pauline Baynes has had a long and distinguished, if largely unheralded, career. She is widely known only for her definitive illustrations for the Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis and for several works by J. R. R. Tolkien; in fact, she is a prolific artist who has produced hundreds of book and magazine illustrations, book covers, bookplates, posters, Christmas cards, advertising art-even designs for embroideries and biscuit tins. She has accepted a wide variety of commissions to earn a living. Among these, children's books have been the most frequent, though she has never been particularly an illustrator for children and considers herself to be foremost a decorator and designer.

Pauline Baynes was born on 9 September 1922 in Brighton, one of two daughters of Frederic William Wilberforce Baynes and Jessie Harriet Maud Cunningham Baynes. Her earliest years were spent in India, where her father was in the civil service...