‘Illustrators are word people who happen to draw. We work with one foot in a book and the other stuck in a paint pot. Our shoes are a disgrace’ – Wallace Trip.
‘Art is bridging words and images’ -Tony Kushner.
‘Illustrations in picture books are the first paintings most children see’ -Anthony Browne.
Like most book collectors, I have collected certain books just because they featured a favourite illustrator. While the average book purchaser doesn’t spend time considering the quality of the artwork, bindings, typeface, paper (or smell), they can still be unwittingly beguiled by these seemingly peripheral considerations. For me, these alchemical considerations are integral to my enjoyment.
And it’s not always about a new or expensive hardback edition either. An old paperback with an interesting cover can attract me more than an ugly hardback. Aesthetics depend on personal taste and cultural context.
I once purchased a tatty, coverless, 1815 Regency novel for a few dollars. The book had no monetary value at all – so why? Because I wanted to put myself in the original reader’s shoes. As I read, I swear I could detect the musty odour of leather boots and Regency oak panelling. It was a portal into another age.
A book is more than a collection of words; it is the sum of its parts and more besides. If an author decides to illustrate, those illustrations become part of the script. And a book is an unfolding story. An unillustrated first edition might gain illustrations in subsequent editions, and each iteration builds on the earlier narrative.
A reissue of an old text with contemporary illustrations can delight, but to get a fuller picture, we need to see the original too. Serious book collectors know this. If you look back through Charles Dickens’ publications, a rich history of illustrations leads from mid-Victorian to modern times. ’Phiz’, his early illustrator, was fabulous, but many other notable illustrators followed him.
While the publishing industry doesn’t track the ratio of illustrated to plain-text books, it does analyse a few genres. Aside from specialised fantasy editions or chapter-heading thumbnails, modern adult fiction remains nearly 100% plain print (a notable exception, however, is the Japanese ‘Light Novel’, where black-and-white illustrations are standard). Children’s books, by contrast, are 100% illustrated.
The Egyptians, Greeks, and Persians illustrated books by hand, painting images onto papyrus and vellum, but illustrated books were rare. A different print technology emerged in 3rd-century China, using carved woodblocks, but Europe didn’t catch up until the 15th century.
Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press in 15th-century Germany also popularised the use of paper (the Chinese had been using paper since 105 CE and developed movable type 400 years before Gutenberg). Early printed books, according to several academic studies, were rarely illustrated; even medieval vellum Psalters were only 15% illuminated (I have two medieval ‘Book of Hours’ pages on vellum). In the 200 years following the invention of the printing press, printers still left blank spaces for manual illumination.
Western book illustration as we know it evolved from European woodblock printing and the printing press. Woodblocks could be combined with movable type, since both were forms of relief printing, but the illustrations were often crude. A brief period of metal engraving followed, but the intaglio techniques of etching and engraving soon dominated. These methods remained popular until the 19th century. After that, various new methods and technologies enabled quality colour printing.
In Japan, a colour-printing technique called nishiki-e used many different woodblocks. This produced very high-quality artwork.
The Victorian era is considered to be the ‘golden age of printing’, with its proliferation of technological breakthroughs and mechanised papermaking. And at the same time, literacy rose significantly; printed works were no longer the preserve of the wealthy, but a mass-market commodity.
The Victorian era also saw the rise of the ‘Arts & Crafts’ movement, a rebellion against the Industrial Revolution and new technology. Figures like the socialist William Morris championed a return to handcrafts, and his Kelmscott Press (1891) produced some of the finest books ever printed. He believed that mass-produced books were becoming increasingly shoddy, and he was right.
This gave rise to the Private Press movement, which produced high-quality books that are desirable to modern collectors. I am lucky enough to possess a few, but sadly, no Kelmscott Press. Victorian and early 20th-century private presses included Doves, Ashendene, Vale, Essex House, Eragny, and Cuala. A little later came the Golden Cockerel Press, Nonesuch Press, and Gregynog. Many others are worth collecting too. The illustrations and typography in these finely printed books are frequently exceptional.
Some Illustrators whose works I have collected
Rex Whistler: A brilliant painter, muralist, illustrator and book designer. His masterpiece is the illustrations for ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ in the Cresset Press (1930). His style was elegant and fine Rococo (ornate but not too busy). He was highly in demand by publishers like Faber and Faber. Sadly, he was among the first to die after the Normandy Landings. I always made a point of grabbing any book featuring his illustrations or dust jacket designs. His brother Lawrence was a famous glass engraver.
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Richard ‘Dicky’ Doyle: A famous Victorian illustrator who started as an errand boy. He designed the original Punch cover and its masthead. He illustrated works by many Victorian authors, including Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, John Ruskin, Andrew Lang, and Leigh Hunt. He was fascinated by birds and fairies, and that fascination ran in the family. His brothers were all artists too, and in brother Charles Doyle’s case, the obsession with fairies (and fear of birds) drove him into an asylum. Charles son was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote Sherlock Holmes. Arthur also believed in fairies (and spiritualism) and was duped by a photograph of fairies taken by two young girls (they later confessed it was not real).
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Walter Crane: 1845-1915: An anti-authoritarian democratic socialist who illustrated children’s books and adult literature, and designed socialist pamphlets and union periodicals. He was president of the Arts Workers Guild and later the Arts & Crafts Society. He was also Director of Design at the Manchester School of Art and the Royal College of Art. Along with Kate Greenaway and Randolph Caldicot, he set the standard for children’s illustrated literature.
Before Crane and Greenaway, children’s books were mostly morality tales. Although Crane came out of the Arts & Crafts movement, he also studied Japanese and medieval art. Equally important was his apprenticeship as an engraver, which shaped his approach to design and led him to reject its soulless, mechanised processes. Publishers regarded him as a genius, and he was close friends with Oscar Wilde, William Morris, and George Bernard Shaw. He wrote influential books on design, advocating a move away from the then current obsession with filling every available inch of space.
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In an earlier post, I mentioned the Leighton Dynasty of binders, printers and engravers. I am descended from the founder, George Leighton, who printed the ‘London Illustrated News’. The Leightons pioneered a colour-printing technique that soon came to dominate the industry. Another member of that Leighton family, a cousin, was Edmund Blair Leighton, a Pre-Raphaelite painter and Academician. His paintings illustrated books, including George Eliot’s. Several of his illustrations are in the Auckland Art Gallery collection.
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A proper examination of book illustration would require a deeper analysis than I am qualified to deliver. What I have covered here offers a personal perspective and a glance. I may look at the topic again in the future, and if so, comics, children’s books and related areas like book plates could be the focus.
And here in New Zealand, we have a rich tradition of illustration too—the ethnographic art of the explorers (e.g. Buller’s Birds) and the botanical artists. We also have a rich history of cartoons, newspaper illustrations and school journals. And most importantly, the picture book explosion of the mid-20th century, which saw a proliferation of extraordinary children’s books. We have produced many fine engravers, but four wood engravers and etchers stand out: E. Mervyn Taylor, John Buckland Wright, Leo Bensemann and Rona Dyer.
So while I have illustrated books from many eras, my interest focused on a hundred years: mid-Victorian to mid-20th century. It was instinctive and based on my tastes, but there was another reason—the switch from letterpress to offset printing after the 1950s. Economic and logistical factors drove the move to offset lithography: speed, cost, and safety. It’s hard to argue against the change, but something substantial was lost: aesthetics.
Letterpress has been with us in various forms since Gutenberg, but I’m not just talking about nostalgia. When you ink and press text in a galley, something special happens. A crisp, fine impression forms, and in fine printing, you can see and feel it. Letterpress is not a chemical process like offset. We are talking aesthetics, and the finest private press printers have always used and still use letterpress.
When I was a boy, my friends and I collected stamps. They were crisp and typographically beautiful, and the colours were marvellous. After the 1950s, stamp collecting declined, and I blame offset techniques. I had no interest in collecting the ugly objects that proliferated after the 1950s. Thomas De la Rue pioneered stamp letterpress technology and printed stamps for 150 colonies. Rivals like the French Atelier des Timbres-Poste produced iconic stamps like the Sage and Sower series. The stamps of the first 100 years were tiny works of art, but they were replaced by bland, busy ephemera.
And while I have many books with nice modern illustrations, they appeal to me less. I will let the pictures I post illustrate my preference.
Sources referred to and Illustrators pictured: ‘Walter Crane as a Book Illustrator’ by Rodney Engen, ‘Walter Crane, Artist, Designer & Socialist’ by Greg Smith, ‘Line & Form’ by Rex Whistler, ‘The Laughter & the Urn: a life of Rex Whistler’ by Laurence Whistler, ‘Illustrators of the 1800s’ by Forest Reid, ‘The Art of the Printed Book’ by Blumenthal, ‘Millers Collecting Books’ by Catherine Porter. Illustrations, in order from left to right where applicable: ‘Fox & Crane’ – Walter Crane, ‘May Pole’ – Crane, ‘Ali Baba’ – Crane, ‘Gulliver’ (two plates) – Rex Whistler, ‘Desert Islands’ – Rex Whistler, ‘Scarecrow’ – Rex Whistler, ‘A Jar of Honey ‘ Richard Doyle (2), ‘Mr Birchell’s First Visit’ – Thomas Rowlandson, ‘Your Passports’ – 19th-century French, possibly Maris, ‘The Lost God Pan’ – H J Ford, ‘Book of Job’ (two plates) – Herbert Granville Fell, ‘Mosque’ – Frank Brangwyn, ‘Robinson Crusoe’, artist unattributed but I found reference to this 19th-century Warne edition in a Dutch catalogue – almost certainly Ernst Henri Griset. (Dickens) ‘Bleak House’ – Phiz, ‘Mr. Pickwick’ – Phiz, ‘The Old Curiosity Shop’ – C Green. ‘early 1400s Book of Hours illumination’.
