Illustrated books

From Dunlap’s “History of the Arts of Dedign” we learn that the earlie I pecimens of engraving are of the fifteenth century, and the first artist on record is Martin Schoen, of Culmbach, who died in 1486. The Italians claim the invention; but it is remarkable that the first book printed at Rome had the first engravings executed there, and were done by two Germans, date 1478. Scriptural designs of many figures were cut with descriptive texts on each block or plate, and they were printed on one side of the paper only, and two prints were frequently pasted together to form one leaf, with a picture on each side; entire sets were subsequently bound up and formed the block-books so well known to antiquaries.

Typography was introduced into England by Caxton in 1474, and published his “Game of Chesse,” “Æsop,” and other works with woodcuts, the execution of which is quite barbarous when compared with continental engravings of the same period. All cuts consisted of little more than outlines until 1493, when Michael Wolgemuth effected e great improvement in the art of wood engraving by his cuts for his “Nuremberg Chronicle,” in which be introduced a greater degree of shading, and the first attempts at cross-hatching. This was carried to a much higher perfection by his pupil, Albert Durer.

The sixteenth century was rich in able wood engravers in several parts of continental Europe. In England, engraving was indebted to foreigners, generally Flemish, Dutch, and German, for existence until the middle of the seventeenth century. Of early English artists one of the most eminent is George Vertue, who died in 1756. The founder of the school of English landscape engraving is Francis Nivares, a Frenchman. However, Woollet, a native of England, was a great engraver of this school, although he did not confine himself to landscapes, as his great work after West’s “Death of Wolfe,” sufficiently proves. Hogarth, one of the glories of English painting was equally celebrated as an engraver.

In the seventeenth century the art of wood-engraving visibly declined, owing to the superior cultivation of copper-engraving; but in the eighteenth century it was revived in England with great success by Bewick, who began the practice of the art in 1768. In 1775, Bewick produced his well-known cut of “The old Hound,” and in 1785 he commenced his natural histories, and published “The Quadrupeds” in 1790, and “Birds” in 1797. These and his other works effected by their great excellence the restoration of an almost lost art, and led to its cultivation and development, and the introduction of a richer and more varied style of workmanship, until the English, who were behind their continental neighbours at the outset, have become pre-eminent in the art.*

The Bewick of America was Alexander Anderson, who studied the art of metal engraving with John Roberts. In the year 1764,as a professional engraver, Mr. Anderson was engaged by William Durell, one of the early American publishers, to engrave cuts for an edition of “The Looking Glass,” the original engravings for which were cut by Bewick on wood. He worked through half the book in type metal and copper, and then commenced his essays on wood without other instruction than that derived from studying Bewick’s cuts, which he was copying, lie persevered in the practice and exhibited real ability, though for many years he received but little encouragement; but, like his great English contemporary, he was an enthusiast in the art, and kept steadily on his course, and had the satisfaction of witnessing the progress of wood-engraving in America to general adoption.

In America, as in England, the first illustrated books which aimed at excellence in the art of engraving, and to rank altogether in paper, printing, and binding, as works of art, were in the form of Annuals. In England we have to go hark as far as 1822 to find the earliest of the Annuals. In the year 1829, seventeen of these works were published in England; in 1840 there were only nine; and in 1856 the last of the Annuals, “The Keepsake,” ceased to exist.

Although the engravings, which were after the best English painters, such as Turner, Landseer, Clarkson, Stanfield, Roberts, Stone, and Callcott, were the main attraction, some of the most distinguished authors were engaged on the letter-press. Sir Walter Scott wrote in one, and received five hundred pounds for four not very long contributions. Coleridge wrote in another; and among lesser names were Dr. Croly, L. E. London, Mary Howitt, Mrs. Norton, and the Countess of Blessington. The pioneer on the other side of the Atlantic were “The Token,” published in Boston, by S. G. Goodrich, for which Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote his first thing I, and “The Gift,” published by B. E. Carey, afterwards of the firm of Carey & Hart.

The art of illustration by engravings passed into a new phase in England about the year 1840, and a little later the same phase in the United States. The art of illustration was cheapened and popularised. The “Pickwick Papers,” and other early works of Mr. Charles Dickens, followed by those of Charles Lever, had created a popular taste for picture hooks. In 1840, “Master Humphrey’s Clock” was issued in threepenny weekly numbers with woodcut illustrations by G. Cattermole and H. K. Browne; and at the same time Ainsworth’s “Tower of London,” in shilling monthly parts, with illustrations by George Cruikshank and W. A. Delamotte. Punch was started in 1841, and in 1842 the Illustrated London News, and both gave an immense impetus to the taste for pictorial illustrations.

The cheap illustrated books and serials of Messrs. Charles Knight and the Brothers W. & R. Chambers, were the forerunners of the mass of the miscellaneous books and periodicals of the present day. In 1869 was started the Graphic, which transcends in the excellence of its illustrations any previous achievement either in this or any other country.

A magnificent collection of illustrations, showing the rise and progress of the art, is on view at the South Kensington Museum. In arranging it, the object of its originator has been to illustrate the results attained by each of the processes employed, rather than to point attention to the works of any particular masters or schools of art. The series commences with examples of prints from wood or metal blocks, either simple or compound, and of plain as well as coloured impressions obtained by their means, but by a single operation of the printing press. A set of impressions from the blocks cut by Bewick illustrate the degree of perfection to which wood engraving was advanced at the close of the last century, and examples of split prints from the Illustrated News show the means which have been employed to aid collectors in completing their series from the pages of periodicals and the literature of our own times. Prints from engraved copper plates follow, and they illustrate the results attained simply by cutting away portions of the surface of the metal plate by the graver; the action of the acids, as applied in the production of etchings; and the results of a combination of etching and engraving arts were practised at the period when Hogarth began his career. Another set illustrates engraving upon steel and lithography. Following the lithographic examples is a large series of prints in carbon obtained by a variety of photographic processes.

It is curious to remark that the past, the present, and the future of our producing powers have each been based upon entirely distinct principles. As greater facilities for producing prints have been demanded, a weaker and apparently less durable source of production has been, and appears, in the future, to be likely to be still more resorted to. Thus, in the past period, engravings were executed, and prints obtained from copper and steel plates.

At present, wood blocks and lithographic stones are employed; but the future of our art-producing power appears likely to rest on what are apparently still less durable, viz., gums, resins, and gelatine. The series is brought to a close by juxtaposing works of Doo, Cousins, Landseer, and others, engravers of our own times, as published by Mr. Graves, with the series of carbon prints obtained by means of gelatine, as in the photo-galvano-graphic process of Herr Paul Pretsch; prints in gelatine by Mr. Swan, of Newcastle, the Autotype Company, of London, and Woodbury’s process; and prints from gelatine as seen in the examples by M. Tessier du Motay, of Paris, and Herr Albert, of Munich. The collection consists of about 300 examples, and presents a sort of panoramic view of prints and reproductive art during the past century and a half, and it is interesting as showing the direction in which we must look in the future.

Whatever success may have attended the efforts of various publishing firms to extend the art of wood-engraving, it must be admitted that one firm stands out pre-eminent in the magnitude of its operations in this direction. Messrs. Cassell, Petter, and Galpin may be said to have accomplished the work of bringing high-class and valuable pictorial representations within reach of the people. “Cassell’s Illustrated History of England” may be mentioned among the first illustrated works of importance undertaken by the firm. It was richly embellished with wood-engravings to the number of two thousand, by the most eminent English and foreign artists. A careful attention to archaeological research gives inestimable interest to every engraving; and, in fact, pictures out the story of our country’s annals so faithfully as to leave an indelible impression on the mind.

But a still greater work remained to be done. When, in 1859, the firm undertook the issue of an illustrated edition of the Holy Scriptures, so gigantic an undertaking had never been attempted before. Editions of the Bible with pictures, a very different thing from illustrations, had been on several occasions attempted with varying success; but the work projected by Messrs. Cassell, Tetter, and Galpin was to comprise the drawings of the best artists, founded on the most reliable sources, involving an immense outlay of capital, and the price of each number was to be One Penny. Artists of the highest eminence, English and foreign, were engaged, and the first number of “Cassell’s Illustrated family Bible” was hailed with universal satisfaction. Its engravings formed an era in the art of wood-engraving. Never before had such drawings been so faithfully rendered by the graver, and never before had woodcuts been so carefully and beautifully printed. Originally designed for the home of the cottager and the parlour of the operative, yet this edition was welcomed by the highest and noblest in the land; and not in this land alone, in America, Australia, and throughout the Colonies, it was alike popular.

Then followed the issue of “Cassell’s Popular Illustrated Natural History,” with about one thousand illustrations. Space will not allow us to further particularise the illustrated works which rapidly followed each other from the press of Messrs. Cassell, Petter, and Galpin; we must confine ourselves to the mere mention of a magnificent Memorial Edition of the works of Shakespeare, in three volumes, containing upwards of five hundred illustrations, produced at a cost of about £20,000, “Cassell’s Illustrated Edition of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs,” “Cassell’s Illustrated Pemjy Readings,” “Cassell’s Illustrated World of Wonders.” “Cassell’s Illustrated Swiss Family Robinson.” To this array of illustrated standard works we have yet to add the most magnificent series of illustrated volumes ever given to the British public, namely, the masterly Doré series of fine art volumes, the Holy Bible, Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” Dante’s “Inferno,” Dante’s “Purgatory and Paradise,” “Don Quixote,” “Atala,” La Fontaine’s “Fables,” “Croquemetaine,” “Fairy Realm,” “Munchausen,” and “Wandering Jew,” which mark, perhaps, the greatest advance in the progress of wood-engraving and printing, as applied to popular illustrated books, that this country has witnessed.