This collection of stories, titled the Annancy Stories, is written and illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith. It was published by R.H. Russell New York in 1899. 

This work is a collection of stories from Jamaican Folklore which includes 26 full pages of illustrations and numerous textual decorations.

The illustrations were in black and white, however her hand coloured prints showed signs of great promise as mentioned in an 1899 article. Furthermore, her illustrations mirror common bold caricature drawings in which she is able to give equal authority to both her texts and visuals.

Although published during the Victorian period, Annancy Stories is notable for its non-victorian and non-British illustrations. Instead, the collection of stories use the relationship of text and image in order to emphasize on themes of West Indies Folklore. The style of the illustrations are not commonly found in Victorian Literature which makes this book unique to the time period. 

The "Anansi" is spider-like Jamaican Folklore figure that is reoccuring in the book and is considered a god of all knowledge of stories. Pamela uses this figure in order to further distinguish her work from other works of the time period. 

Annancy Stories was published alongside four other books from Smith, which were reviewed very positively. Although critics noted that her works were not well known, they felt Smith’s work held great potential for the future.

Source: Denisoff, Dennis. “Pamela Colman Smith (1878-1951),” Y90s Biographies, edited by Dennis Denisoff. Yellow Nineties 2.0, General Editor Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, Ryerson University Centre for Digital Humanities, 2019, https://1890s.ca/smith_bio/ 

Contributed to by: Mark Dasilva, Yousef Farhang, and Patricia Lucreziano