Victorian Novelists and Their Illustrators

by J.R. Harvey

First U.S. edition. Includes the work of Bruegel, Hogarth, Gillray, Cruikshank, Thackeray and Phiz. With the bookplate and pencil signature of Gavin Bridson. Back cover of book and jacket are stained. ii, 240 pages and with 76 illustrations. cloth, dust jacket.. 4to..

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1970

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let there be no mistake. This is not a book that skims its topic, offers illustrations for their gloss or attractiveness, or even pretends to cater to the mildly interested reader. For the person who wants a serious, scholarly investigation and analysis of the beginnings, evolution and reasons for the proliferation of illustrators in 19C novels, however, this is an ideal book.

Beginning with the enormous debt Victorian illustrators owed to Hogarth, this book traces how the illustrator and the novelist combined to create some of the great novels of the 19C. Dickens, Trollope, and Thackeray all were great novelists, but J.R. Harvey convincingly documents and points out how their illustrators helped form, represent, and at times even comment on the texts they were involved in.

This text is thoroughly documented and there are multiple appendixes that look further into issues mentioned in the chapters. Harvey’s style is never pedantic, but neither does it pander to the reader. Scholarly in tone, and insightful in observation, this is a text that deserves to be read by anyone who wants to know more about some of the major Victorian writers. It must also be noted that Harvey’s chapters offer insights that go beyond discussing the illustrators to present interesting insights into the novel that are exclusive of the novel’s illustrations.

This text deserves more attention and a space on the shelf of serious readers of the 19C novel.