Mr. Laurence Housman's article on A. Boyd Houghton in "Bibliographica" I wish I had seen before the English chapter was written, and I wish I had had the benefit of his researches concerning this master, as well as the advice of Mr. A. Strahan, which would have been invaluable.
BY MAURICE GREIFFENHAGEN. PEN DRAWING FROM “THE DAILY CHRONICLE.”
Mr. W. J. Hennessy has given much help in the American chapter, and I must thank Mr. Emery Walker, Mr. Horace Townsend, Mr. H. Orrinsmith, Mr. C. T. Jacobi, Mr. W. E. Henley, and I cannot remember how many more. Mr. Edmund Gosse kindly allowed us to reproduce his Rossetti, one of the strongest pieces of work, I think, that artist ever did in pen and ink. The other drawings not contributed directly by artists, or not obtained as electros, etc., are mainly from my own collection, for strange as it may seem, the collection of original drawings is one of my hobbies; others may collect bad prints, I prefer good originals. The proprietors of "The Daily Chronicle" allowed us to reproduce a number of designs made for that paper, and published in it during February, 1895. That no drawings are included from many of the artists of "Fliegende Blätter" is because the proprietors refused to allow them to be reproduced or used; no doubt the publishers have daily applications of the same sort, but as a book like this is not intended as a rival to a comic paper, I think their refusal in this case rather uncalled for. Still, I have not allowed their decision to influence me, nor yet the refusal of one or two artists, who evidently prefer the advertisement of the vulgar type of weekly to being included with their equals or masters. No doubt these confessions will be greeted with applause, especially in that paper whose boast it was once to be "written by gentlemen for gentlemen." No doubt I shall be censured for leaving out the work of every man who ever happened to make an illustration or even a sketch, especially if it was privately published. No doubt the omission of Miss Alexander and other Ruskin-boomed amateurs will be noted, but I have no collection of their works which I should like to unload on the dear public. And as for the misplaced energy contained in these drawings, I am sorry that their authors wasted so much time over them. No doubt for making these confessions, unknown or anonymous nobodies will shriek out that I have stolen everything in the book from an authority of whom I never heard. And, finally, no doubt an ordinarily rational paper like the "Spectator" will remark of certain of the drawings, "they make us sick."
As to the text, it is in no sense an attempt at a complete history of modern illustration; such a subject would fill volumes, and take a lifetime to prepare. It is but a sketch, and a very slight one, of what I think is the most important work of this century; from which I know I shall be told I have omitted almost all that I should have included, and inserted much that should have been omitted.
But I should like to point out that there are no works that I have been able to consult on modern illustration, that is on drawing, engraving and printing as practised to-day in Europe and America; there are a few excellent books notably a "Chapter on English Illustration," by Mr. Dobson, in Mr. Lang's "The Library," and Mr. Linton's works on engraving; Mason Jackson's "Pictorial Press;" a few good monographs on the great illustrators, Champfleury's "Vignettes Romantiques," for example; many excellent scattered articles, and an ocean of rubbish. But I am the unfortunate who will be sacrificed for attempting to write the first book on a subject he loves. There is another most serious, really insurmountable difficulty, for me or anyone else who attempts to write of modern illustration: no illustrations are catalogued to any extent; only the most important illustrators find a place in either the catalogues of South Kensington Art Library or the British Museum; therefore a few years, even a few weeks, after an illustrated book is published, if it has already passed through several editions, it may require hours to find the edition one wants. And as for a special illustration, that necessitates almost always turning over thousands of pages—unless one knows exactly where to find it. I know of but one magazine—"Once a Week"—in the bound volumes of which the artist's work is properly indexed, and even here the engraver's name is omitted.[2] In Harper's most excellently conducted magazine, for some unknown reason artists and engravers are ignored in the index. Even "The Century" leaves much to be desired in this way. Again, it is almost impossible to obtain the date or the name of the work in which many an important illustration first appeared. Illustrations are used over and over again, this has always been done; even a publisher at times cannot help one: for this reason it is very difficult to tell when one is consulting a first edition of an illustrated book. Sometimes I fancy this carelessness is not altogether unassociated with the author's or publisher's desire to palm off old blocks as new. It is by no means uncommon to omit the name of the artist altogether from the work he has illustrated; rarely indeed is it that the engraver's name is given; sometimes no mention that the work is illustrated is even made on the title page, or only that it contains so many illustrations; usually if an attempt is made to describe the method by which the designs have been reproduced, it is wrong; in rare cases, I am glad to say, this is intentional—photogravures being called etchings, for example—but it is mainly the result of sheer ignorance on the part of publisher, author, or at times, the illustrator.
Hence there are two matters to which I should like to call attention; that all library catalogues give the name of artist and engraver whenever these are printed in the book being catalogued; naturally in a work like this or a magazine, such a course would be impossible, but at least the number of illustrations might be given. The name of the illustrator should always appear on the title page when possible; if his work is worth printing he should have a decent amount of attention drawn to it. This matter is not so difficult, nor would it entail in new catalogues so much work as librarians might think, for I may say in the British Museum and South Kensington I find that Menzel's work is so catalogued already.
BY E. J. SULLIVAN. PEN DRAWING FROM “THE DAILY CHRONICLE.”
Secondly, that bibliographers everywhere should turn their attention more to modern illustrated works, even if from the bibliographer of the future it removed much of that pleasant uncertainty which enhances, for some, the work of to-day. There is scarce an illustrated book of the fifteenth or sixteenth century, in which we are absolutely sure of the artist and engraver; but the bibliographers of the future will have a far bigger puzzle to solve, unless we pay some attention to the work of to-day, when they come to catalogue and describe the books of this century.