[CHAPTER IX: SOME ILLUSTRATED BOOKS, 1865–1872]
With 1865 we reach the height of the movement—this and the following year being of all others most fertile in books illustrated by the best representative men. It saw Rossetti's frontispiece and title to The Prince's Progress (Macmillan, 1866), these two designs being almost enough to make the year memorable. A Round of Days (Routledge), one of the finest of the illustrated gift-books, contains Walker's Broken Victuals (p. 3), One Mouth More (p. 58), and the well-known Four Seasons (pp. 37, 39, 41, 43), for one of which the drawing on wood is at South Kensington Museum. A. Boyd Houghton appears with fourteen examples (pp. 1, 2, 5, 19, 20, 21, 22, 30, 47, 48, 71, 73, 77, 78), J. W. North with three exquisite landscapes (pp. 15, 17, 18), G. J. Pinwell with five subjects, Paul Gray with one (p. 81), J. D. Watson with five (pp. 26, 28, 62, 64, 66), T. Morten with one (p. 79), A. W. Bayes with two, T. Dalziel with seven, and E. Dalziel with two. These complete its contents, excepting two delicately engraved studies of heads after Warwick Brookes. The book itself is distinctly a lineal descendant from the annuals of the earlier half of the century; a typical example of a not very noble ideal—a scrap-book of poems and pictures made important by the work of the artists.
Yet, with full recognition of the greater literalism of reproductive process to-day, one doubts if even The London Garland (Macmillan, 1895), which most nearly approaches it, will maintain its interest more fully, after thirty years' interval, than does this sumptuous quarto, and a few of its fellows. That we could get together, at the present time, as varied and capable a list of artists is quite possible; but where is the publisher who would risk paying so much for original work designed for a single book, when examples by the same men are to be obtained in equally good reproductions, and not less well printed in many of the sixpenny weeklies and the monthly magazines? The change of conditions seems to forbid a revival of volumes of this class, although the Yellow Book, The Pageant, The Savoy, and The Quarto, are not entirely unrelated to them.
To 1864 belongs formally The Cornhill Gallery, a hundred impressions from the original blocks of pictures. Among the early volumes issued for Christmas 1865, this is, perhaps, the most important book, but, as its contents are fully noticed elsewhere, no more need be said here. It is amusing to read that a critic disliked 'Mr. Leighton's unpleasant subjects'—the Romola designs! Dalziels' Illustrated Goldsmith (Ward and Lock, 1865), may be considered, upon the whole, the masterpiece of G. J. Pinwell, who designed the hundred illustrations which seemed then to be accepted as the only orthodox number for a book. How charming some of these are every student of the period knows. Pinwell, as certain original drawings that remain prove only too clearly, suffered terribly at the engraver's hands, and, beautiful as many of the designs are, one cannot avoid regret that they were not treated more tenderly. It is quite possible that bold work was needed for the serial issue in large numbers, and that the engravers simplified the drawings of set purpose; but the delicacy and grace of the originals are ill-replaced by the coarser modelling of the faces and the quality of the 'line' throughout. This year saw also Home Thoughts and Home Scenes, a book with thirty-five drawings of children, by A. Boyd Houghton (Routledge, 1865); which was afterwards reprinted as Happy Day Stories. This book is absolutely essential to any representative collection of the period, but nevertheless its designs can hardly be regarded as among the artist's most masterly works.
Warne's edition of The Arabian Nights (1866), with sixteen drawings, eight by A. Boyd Houghton, must not be confused with the other edition to which he contributed quite distinct subjects. This, and Don Quixote (Warne) appear in the Christmas lists for 1865. The great Spanish novel hardly seems to have sustained the artist to his finest achievements throughout. It contains 100 most interesting designs; some that reveal his full accomplishment. At the same time it fails to astound you, as the Arabian Nights have a knack of doing again and again, whenever you turn over their pages.
G. J. PINWELL
