Illustrators of the Eighteen Sixties: An Illustrated Survey of the Work of 58 British Artists

by Forrest Reid

. 1975 reprint, clean copy no markings, light wear to covers, Professional booksellers since 1981

267 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1975

About the author

Forrest Reid was an Irish novelist, literary critic and translator. He was, along with Hugh Walpole and J.M. Barrie, a leading pre-war British novelist of boyhood. He is still acclaimed as the greatest of Ulster novelists and was recognised with the award of the 1944 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel Young Tom.

Reviews

[Martyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

The physical book itself makes you want to give it five stars. In spite of the fairly plain binding (green cloth with a gilt vinette of an Arthur Hughes' illustration for the Princess and the Goblin), it just feels so pleasant to handle - so robust, the paper lovely, the text comfortably laid out, the illustrations excellently reproduced. It's just a beautiful piece of work from beginning to end. However . . . one of my criteria for a five-star book is that I want to read it again, and I'm not sure that that will ever be the case with this particular one. It's wonderful to have, it's great as a reference book and resource, but the text itself, while containing many useful bits of information, is not such as I would be likely to ever feel the need to read again in its entirety.

Appreciation of art is always a very subjective thing and just as Forrest Reid was rather dismissive of the views of some of the critics who had gone before him, a reader is also like to disagree with some of Reid's views - to be unable to discover the beauty in illustrations which Reid raved over, or to think things exquisite which Reid was more critical of, but surely any reader will be able to find some illustrations among this collection which really appeal to him - and I find many of them a real source of inspiration. It's hard to be sure whether I am more appreciative of the artists themselves, though, or of the skill of the engravers. But whatever, it makes me want to get out a pen and start trying to copy some of these images, to develop a knack for sketching such characterful faces, or for drawing quaint old window frames and other picturesque features and details, with just few deft lines.

It's a great introduction to some of the important names of the perid - almost all of them entirely forgotten (just as so many big names of the Victorian era have passed out of our consciousness through changes in fashions and the obliteration of time. It's great that Reid was able to rescue some of these names from oscurity and preserve them for posterity, along with details of their work which would otherwise probably have been lost forever - such as the identities of artists behind unsigned illustrations which he only discovered from the publishers' archives. The illustrative world does appear to be a rather daunting and confusing one to study with so many conflicting 'facts' and opinions floating about. If men a hundred years ago could be uncertain about so many things (or so certain about very contradictory views) how are we, over a century and half after the time in question, supposed to be able to arrive at any more definite conclusions as to the true artist behind a particular piece of work? But the advantage we do perhaps have, which Reid didn't, is the internet, which might make some obscure titles much more easily procurable, some of which might contain necessary clues and proofs which Reid and his contemporaries never had access to.

The book opens up the doorway into another world, into another age.