Reading Victorian Illustration, 1855-1875

Spoils of the Lumber Room

Paul Goldman, Simon Cooke

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781138109544
• eBook ISBN: 9781317070955
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

In a reevaluation of that period in Victorian illustration known as 'The Sixties,' a distinguished group of international scholars consider the impact of illustration on the act of reading; its capacity to reflect, construct, critique and challenge its audience's values; its response to older graphic traditions; and its assimilation of foreign influences. While focused on the years 1855 to 1875, the essays take up issues related to the earlier part of the nineteenth century and look forward to subsequent developments in illustration. The contributors examine significant figures such as Ford Madox Brown, Frederick Sandys, John Everett Millais, George John Pinwell, and Hablot Knight Browne in connection with the illustrated magazine, the mid-Victorian gift book, and changing visual responses to the novels of Dickens. Engaging with a number of theories and critical debates, the collection offers a detailed and provocative analysis of the nature of illustration: its production, consumption, and place within the broader contexts of mid-Victorian culture.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Notes on Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Defining Illustration Studies: Towards a New Academic Discipline
• 2 Facsimile Versus White Line: An Anglo-German Disparity
• 3 A Bitter After-Taste: The Illustrated Gift Book of the 1860s
• 4 Happy Endings: Death and Domesticity in Victorian Illustration
• 5 Science and Art: Vestiges of Corpses in Pre-Raphaelite Illustrations
• 6 ‘Fleshing out’ Time: Ford Madox Brown and the Dalziels’ Bible Gallery
• 7 Making History: Text and Image in Harriet Martineau’s Historiettes
• 8 ‘Reading the Pictures, Visualizing the Text’: Illustrations in Dickens from Pickwick to the Household Edition, 1836 to 1870, Phiz to Fred Barnard
• 9 ‘Spoils of the lumber-room’: Early Collectors of Wood-Engraved Illustrations from 1860s Periodicals
• Works Cited
• Index