The Dictionary of British Book Illustrators and Caricaturists 1800-1914. With Introductory Chapters on the Rise and Progress of the Art

Antique Collectors' Club, Woodbridge, first edition, 1978. Cloth, 4to, 274 x 208 mm,. 520 pp, 12 colour plates, numerous black-and-white ills. From the blurb: "Drawings and engravings were the only means of book or magazine illustrations until the camera took over at the end of the nineteenth century. The impact of the illustrated magazine on the Victorian household must have been tremendous; for the first time people In remote places and of all backgrounds had their own personal galleries of portraits, landscapes, caricatures, battle scenes, still-lifes and miniatures delivered by the postman weekly. For it was not only the thousands of books which poured from the presses which had to be illustrated to command the eyes of the prospect ive purchaser, but magazines such as the Illustrated London News, Punch and dozens of other titles, long since perished, who relied for their existence on an army of artists of widely varied talents who recorded the explorations, disasters, campaigns, the wonders of nature and contemporary scenes, as well as humour and caricatures, Collectors have long felt the need for a well illustrated Dictionary, This one containing details of approximately 2,500 artists of British books and periodicals begins with ten chapters summarising for the collector the scope and development of illustration in the nineteenth century. They deal with its slow emergence from Regency burlesque, its influence by the Continent, its flirtation with Pre-Raphaelitism and its crystalizatlon in the two great periods, the 1860s and the 1890s. It concludes with a chapter on collecting, an appendix on schools of illustration and a bibliography. It is an essential volume of reference for all interested in the art of the period. Very Good in slightly chipped dustwrapper with faded spine-panel.