gocoder wrote: In this question, I have couple of doubts
I want to know whether them is rightly used [ I felt, them modifies book, so needs to be it if used]

Since "book" here is an adjective modifying "illustrations," it can't take its own pronoun. It's fine to use "them" to refer to illustrations.

Secondly, choice E " Beatrix Potter, in her book illustrations, carefully coordinated them with her narratives and capitalized on her keen observation and love of the natural world.
' seems to me like coordinated and capitalized are parallel. Similarly ' on her keen observation' and ' on her love...' are parallel

Yes, in this case "coordinated" and "capitalized" are parallel, conjoined with "and." That doesn't mean that they should or must be parallel, though. We only need to make sentence elements parallel if it makes logical sense to compare them.

In this sentence, the big picture is Beatrix Potter capitalized on stuff. Where or how did she do this? In her illustrations, which she coordinated with her narratives. "Capitalized" and "coordinated" aren't really on the same level of meaning.


(A) Beatrix Potter, in her book illustrations, carefully coordinating them with her narratives,

A present participle like "coordinating" after a comma should modify to a complete clause before it. Here, though, there is no complete clause. There is just the subject "Beatrix Potter" followed by a modifying preposition "in her..." This usage of "coordinating" is incorrect.


(B) In her book illustrations, carefully coordinating them with her narratives, Beatrix Potter

Once again, we have two modifiers stacked in a row, both of which seem to be modifying the subject. Also, when "them" is used in an opening modifier beginning with a present participle, it should refer to the SUBJECT that comes after it, not a noun in another modifier before it.


(C) In her book illustrations, which she carefully coordinated with her narratives, Beatrix Potter

Correct. The modifier "in her book illustrations" refers to the subject "Beatriz Potter," and "which she coordinated..." further modifies the illustrations.


(D) Carefully coordinated with her narratives, Beatrix Potter, in her book illustrations

This implies that Beatrix Potter herself, not her illustrations, was coordinated with the narratives. Nonsensical.


(E) Beatrix Potter, in her book illustrations, carefully coordinated them with her narratives and

We should be able to remove any nonessential prepositional phrase and still maintain the intended meaning of the sentence. Here, if we said "Beatrix Potter... carefully coordinated them..." we would have no idea what "them" is. A pronoun should not be used as an object if the antecedent is within a modifying phrase.


The correct answer is C.