Bonnier Carlsen Restoration Project

Elsa Beskow is a veritable Swedish Mother Goose. Her picture books are evergreen despite some being over 100 years old. But over time as new editions have been printed, a good deal of the original colors have faded in the more recent editioins. So Swedish book publisher Bonnier Carlsen decided to do something about it.

“We’ve always updated our material so that the print will be the best possible, but technology has moved forward at an incredible pace the last years so today it’s easier to recreate the illustrations as they originally looked,” says Sara Hedenberg, editor at Bonnier Carlsen.

The print repro company used for the assignment has gotten digital files with photos of the originals. Then they have “lifted” the illustrations themsevles from the yellowed background and with the help of looking at the original illustrations, have recreated the colors. Bonnierförlagen has saved a lot old editions in its archive, in some cases even original editions.

“All editions of individual titles were pulled and you could see how the colors had changed over the years,” says Barbro Ek, who is responsible for the archive. “The originals had a softer, milder color range, which has come through beautifully in the newly printed books.”

The new technology ended up giving Bonnier Carlsen the idea of publishing a collection of Elsa Beskow’s work, which resulted in the anthology Elsa Beskows sagoskatt (Elsa Beskow’s fairytale treasury).

“We wanted to show how big she was and what she’s meant for Swedish cultural life,” says Hedenberg. “And when we found the right format and even a way to bring out her less well-known work – illustrations, poems and fairytales – that aren’t found in individual picture books, Elsa Beskows sagoskatt was born. It’s an anthology that shows the breadth of her work and how she developed over the years.”

The publisher also has a special website just on Elsa Beskow here (in Swedish only).