Images from Die Geburtstagsreise (The Birthday Trip, 1976) by Monika Beisner, courtesy of fellow book collector Arthur Van Kruining.

About the artist (from a website for her new illustrations for Ovid)

Monika Beisner was born in Germany, where she studied painting in Braunschweig and Berlin. Fellowships allowed her to continue her studies in New York and London, where she now lives.

Her illustrations for children’s books have earned her an international reputation and she has exhibited worldwide. Her illustrations of Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’ have been published in Germany and Italy.

She has completed illustrations for Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’.

Her next step will be into the world of ‘Gilgamesh’.

Previously by this artist: The thumbtown toad laughed so hard that she burst into fire