© Artist or Artist's Estate. Photograph and digital image © Delaware Art Museum. Not for reprod…

Eileen Alice Soper

British printmaker, 1905–1990

BiographyEtcher and illustrator of children's books. She produced a series of etchings mainly of children playing, and illustrated books for other writers, notably for Enid Blyton and Elizabeth Gould. She also wrote and illustrated her own children's books. Later in life she concentrated on writing and illustrating wildlife books. She was a founder member of the Society of Wildlife Artists (SWLA) and was elected a member of the Royal Society of Miniature Painters, Sculptors and Gravers (RMS) in 1972.
Eileen Soper was born in 1905 in Enfield and moved to the house that she was to spend the rest of her life in Harmer Green, Welwyn in the Hertfordshire countryside in 1908. She attended Hitchin Girls School and was artistically trained mostly by her father, George Soper, also an artist. Eileen showed early promise as an artist and two of her etchings were shown in the Royal Academy in London at the age of 15 She continued to produce around 180 etchings mostly of children at play into the early 1930s Her work was popular and well received and shown in the UK and the USA.
Today Eileen Soper is best known for her collaboration with Enid Blyton, most notably all of the Famous Five books.

Person TypeIndividual

Terms