ENGLISH BOOK ILLUSTRATIONS

Turnbull Library Record, Volume IX, 1 September 1952, Page 10

ENGLISH BOOK ILLUSTRATIONS

C.S.

The George Henry Wood Collection of English Book Illustrations of the Sixties. OUR CENTURY, WITH ITS RAPIDLY CHANGING IDEAS, HAS been forced to recognise the claims of many new forms of art, so that the Victorian tendency to make “art” and “painting” synonymous is no longer possible. This leaves us free to study the art of the book-illustrators of the late Victorian era with an interest not shown in their own

time. Sometimes they were persons whose names are also those of the great painters of the age, but sometimes they were solely book illustrators, and their names are not found in any other field. The George Henry Wood collection consists of a very great series of English book illustrations of the sixties mounted on foolscap sheets, about four hundred illustrated books of the same period, a number of authoritative works on the subject, and a valuable manuscript bibliography of the illustrated books of the time.

From the published writings of Gleeson White, J. M. Gray, Joseph Pennell, and others the great wealth of beautiful engraving to be found in the mass of illustrated books and magazines published in England in the sixties is now apparent. Gleeson White’s monumental work English Illustration of the Sixties 1857-1870 was published in 1903. He took what might be called the “subject” approach, dividing the illustrated work according to the type of material with which it was published before dealing with it in more detail. He was followed in 1928 by Forest Reid in Illustrators of the Sixties. As the title suggests, the latter deals with artists, their influences and schools.

Mr. Wood says of the volume of bibliographical material accompanying his collection: — “The first part contains a list of all books examined by me which I consider should be included in a bibliography of the ‘Sixties’. The second part contains a list of illustrated magazines. The third part is given to books about the subject or the artists, or to articles in later magazines. . . . The last part consists of a foreword and a list of about 100 illustrations which I consider should be in any collection, and, if gathered together, would make a worthy miniature exhibition of the whole subject.”

Mr. Wood’s work was so thorough and extensive that it would seem worth while to keep it up to date. Since contemporary critics wrote little on the subject it would not require much labour to list their work. The collection of mounted prints, grouped according to artist, numbers over 3,000 prints by more than a hundred artists. Some of those grouped by Mr. Wood under “Anonymous and Unknown” may still be identifi-

able, and the completion of this work would leave the way open to make the collection thoroughly comprehensive by the use of photographic reproductions. It could then be made available as part of the Library’s service of providing illustrative material for the press and others requiring it.