Wood engraving--Line
engraving--Etching--Stipple--Mezzotint--Aquatint--Lithography
--Photography.
Writing in early manuscripts was continuous, no stops, no spaces,
no initials. The inconvenience of such an arrangement soon became
apparent; the effect of it can be well seen in the case of the _Codex
Alexandrinus_, written in the fifth century, although this has large
initials, and the difficulty of knowing when a word ends is bad enough,
to say nothing of sentences. The manuscript is at the British Museum.
Presently the first letters of sentences, or perhaps of important
words, were enlarged or rubricated--marked in red--and from that
starting point came the gradual development of beautiful ornamental
letters with sprays starting from them. These sprays ultimately became
rich borderings and spread all over the page, and at last we get to
the illuminated manuscripts of mediæval times filled with exquisite
miniatures, borders, and arabesques of all imaginable kinds.
The subject of illuminated manuscripts has been fully dealt with by
several competent authorities, and it is not necessary here to enter
into it, but so far as printed books are concerned it will be of
interest to survey shortly the chief styles of illustrations with
which they have been provided.
When printed books first began there were no illustrations in them, but
initial letters were often added in red, by hand, and other important
printed letters were marked by a dab of red or yellow across them. The
outline wood cuts which shortly made their appearance were frequently
intended to serve as guides for hand colouring, and many of them are so
treated.
Wood cutting in the case of block books was well understood in the
fifteenth century, but when similar illustrations appear, in company
with the text, in early printed books, the art level both of the
designer and wood cutter is singularly low. This criticism only applies
to the pictorial illustrations, as in the matter of scroll work or
ornamental initials the work is excellent.
The great letter “B” in Fust and Schöffer’s _Mainz Psalter_, issued in
1457, is as fine as anything of its kind that has ever been done. It is
printed from two wood blocks which fit into each other, and which were
inked alternately either red or blue, and then printed together with
the text. A slow process but thoroughly effective. The initial letters
throughout this book seem to have been touched up in places by hand,
especially in the long scrolls which meander up and down the margins of
the pages.
The earliest known book illustration cut on wood is a beautiful outline
sketch of the Goddess of Mercy. It is full page and illustrates a
chapter from a Chinese version of the Saddharmapundarika Sutra, and was
printed in 1331, nearly a hundred years before the earliest European
print from a wood block, the St. Christopher, of 1423, which moreover
was not a book illustration.
Chinese, Japanese, and Korean wood cuts are always in outline,
thickened here and there, but quite different in character and far
better in drawing and execution than early European work of the same
sort. Most of the blocks from which these prints are made are of soft
wood, not box, and are cut with a short knife of peculiar form set in a
handle.
The drawings are made on thin paper and stuck downwards on the blocks;
then the knife is carefully run along the edges of the various lines,
cutting outwards, the interlinear spaces being cut away with a gouge
and hammer. The wood cutting was often done by women. The method of
work is probably the same as was used in Europe in the case of early
blocks.
Besides the design block, always printed in dark neutral tint or
black, during the eighteenth and succeeding centuries, the Chinese and
Japanese cut accessory blocks which were inked in various colours. The
registering of the various colour blocks was managed either by pegs
or notches, and the colours were mixed with water or rice paste. Most
of the European colour processes of printing require oil colours, but
water colours on the Japanese principle have been used with admirable
effect in some of the illustrations to Henry Shaw’s books on Mediæval
Dresses and Decorative Arts, and notably by Edmund Evans and his
successors in more recent times.
From the earliest illustration, mentioned above, until the present day,
the style of Chinese and Japanese wood illustrations has not altered.
There have been several engravers of great skill in both countries,
but I think the Japanese colour prints are best known to us.
The blocks are frequently signed with the names of the designers,
particularly in later times, and many names are already well known to
collectors.
In the seventeenth century Korin was one of the best of the Japanese
illustrators; in the eighteenth century there is admirable work signed
by Hokusai and Hiroshige, and among the many skilled designers of the
nineteenth century the work of Kitigawa Utamaro is perhaps the best
known.
[Illustration: Page from the “Hypnerotomachia Poliphili.” (_Venice_,
1499.) [_To face p._ 104.]
The first Italian book in which wood engravings were used is, as far
as is now known, the “Meditations” of Turrecremata, printed at Rome
in 1467, by Ulrich Hahn. The illustrations are of a simple character
in outline. Then came instances in books printed at Naples, Rome,
Verona, and especially at Venice, where Erhard Ratdolt produced several
with beautiful initials, borders, and pictures. Numbers of the books
published at Venice in the later part of the fifteenth century are
illustrated with exquisite wood cuts; among them the most celebrated
and the most beautiful is the _Hypnerotomachia Poliphili_, printed in
1499.
This celebrated book was written by Francesco Colonna, whose name is
curiously shown by the initials of the chapters, which read “Poliam
Frater Franciscus Columna peramavit,” “Brother Franciscus Columna loved
Polia very much.” Polia has been presumably identified with Lucretia
Lelio, who was a native of Treviso, the place of Polifilo’s dream. The
many engravings are in outline, and several of them are full page.
Italians have always excelled in wood cutting, but although there have
been numbers of illustrated books issued in the sixteenth and later
centuries, those of the fifteenth century still remain pre-eminent. Dr.
Paul Kristeller has, moreover, shown that the Italian printers devices
are well worthy of attention, and many of them are very fine both in
design and execution.
Block books, Japanese wood blocks, and all very early wood cuts, were
cut by a knife, and such outline work, not too small, is easier to
execute with a properly shaped knife than with anything else. But as
soon as wood cutters began to be more skilled, and compared their work
with line engraving, they found that a knife was not so useful as an
engraver’s burin, and so wood _engraving_, as distinct from _cutting_,
came into being. The cuts in the _Nuremberg Chronicle_ of 1493 show
some sort of a transitional stage; there are hatchings and shadowings
which would have been much more easily done with a graver than with a
knife, but I believe, nevertheless, they are all knife work.
Roughly speaking, it is easier to cut a broad outline drawing with
a knife than with a graver, and it is easier to cut a small detail
drawing with a graver than with a knife. At the same time we must
remember that a skilled engraver could execute either sort of engraving
in the wrong way, just as William Harvey cut his well known wood blocks
of the Death of Dentatus in such a way as to show every technical
peculiarity, except one, of an engraving on metal.
Both wood blocks and metal blocks intended to illustrate printed books
were always made of the same depth as the type, so that they could all
be printed together, and that is done to-day in the case of process
or half-tone blocks, which are actually wooden blocks faced with the
soft metal bearing the design. There is always some interest in the
question as to whether a certain print has been cut on a wood block
or on a metal block, and if the print is in perfect condition it is
a very difficult matter to decide. But it is rarely that some small
defect or peculiarity does not appear by help of which a tolerably
certain judgment can be arrived at. Early engraved blocks were often
used again and again until they became quite old, and at last they were
got at by insects who ate small holes in them. If therefore a print
shows little white circular marks upon it there is no doubt that it
was made from a wood block. Instances are by no means unknown in which
experts have decided that a certain block had been cut on metal, and a
later impression has turned up _with worm holes in it_! The grain of
wood will sometimes show on an old print, or a broken edge will show a
sharp fracture indicating wood, in contradistinction to a rounded one,
indicating metal.
The blacks on prints from an engraved metal plate always show very even
spaces, and there are usually plenty of them, often broken, however,
by small white dots, the presence of which denotes the style known as
Pointille, the finest examples of which can be found among the French
Horæ printed for Pigouchet in the fifteenth century. The metal used
was probably a sort of pewter, lead and tin, very easy to engrave
upon, and strong enough to bear many printings. But in many instances
these little blocks seem to have been roughly treated and have fallen
about, and the result is that outer lines which show perfectly straight
in early copies, show as slightly rounded lines on late ones. This
is taken as a decided proof that the original block was made of soft
metal, although I am by no means certain that it is impossible for a
straight edge on wood to warp into a curved line.
Prints from old wood cuts in outlines were frequently added to early
printed books and painted over thickly with opaque colour so as to
produce a different design. The original outline has only been used
as a slight guide. Instances of these curious changes can be found
in numbers of the fine vellum books illustrated in colour which were
printed for Antoine Vérard at Paris in the fifteenth century.
In other cases, particularly in Italy and France, ornamental printed
borders and illustrations have been very carefully painted by hand
just as if they belonged to ordinary illuminated manuscripts. But the
art work in all these cases is not good. The true _illuminatores_ were
obsolescent. A few instances of attempts at colour printing either
by means of blocks or stencil plates were made by Erhard Ratdolt at
Venice, and a few others.
There are two distinct schools of wood engraving, and they are easily
recognised from each other whenever either of them is exclusively new,
but the large majority of the more recent book illustrations cut on
wood show traces of both styles.
These styles are firstly that of the black line, the type of which
may be found in Caxton’s _Myrrour of the Worlde_ printed in 1481, and
secondly that of the white line, the best type of which may be found in
the _History of British Birds_, illustrated with engravings by Thomas
Bewick in 1797.
[Illustration: Page from Caxton’s “Myrrour of the Worlde.” (_London_,
1481.) [_To face p._ 108.]
In judging whether an illustration in a book is printed from a block
cut and printed in the manner of a wood block, the first thing to
observe is whether the black lines are pressed into the paper or not.
The amount of the depression of the black lines may be very slight, but
it must always be looked for because although the necessary pressure
for printing from type and block is slight, still there is always some
of it, and before the introduction of the modern clay-laden papers,
the paper used for printing upon was always softened by damp, and
consequently very susceptible to pressure. If the depression of the
black lines can be recognised, the print is made from a block of some
sort, and printed with a slight pressure.
William Blake’s curious illustrated poems are exceptions to any rule.
He was very poor and unable to afford to have his writings properly
published, so he wrote and drew them out himself on copper, and then
etched away the ground very strongly so as to leave his lines in
relief. The plates were then printed as relief blocks. As curiosities
they are of great interest, and they preserve the individual touch
of the artist to just about the same extent as an etching does. The
process is exactly analogous to the manner in which names or designs
are etched on sword blades, key rings, knife blades and the like, only
Blake allowed the acid to work a little more strongly so as to get a
slightly higher relief.
The first English printed book that is illustrated is Caxton’s _Myrrour
of the Worlde_, printed in 1481; the cuts are quite elementary in
character, like all the wood cuts in English books for a long time.
Ornamental borders are found in Caxton’s _Fifteen Oes._, printed about
1490.
Early English books were not freely illustrated, and it must be
supposed that wood cutters were scarce. Many of the cuts used are of
foreign origin. One early book is charmingly illustrated in colour;
Dame Juliana Bernes’ so-called _Book of St. Albans_, printed in 1486,
has a long series of coats-of-arms printed from wood blocks. The colour
has been added either from other blocks separately inked or else by
means of stencil plates.
In the sixteenth century wood illustrations became more numerous, but
many of them were still of foreign workmanship.
Borders and designs by Holbein were used by Pynson, and these had a
renaissance feeling which was quite foreign to the existing style. The
mixed style which consequently made its appearance is very curious.
It shows well in the semi-classical device of Lucretia used by Thomas
Berthelet, royal printer to Henry VIII. Towards the end of the century
there were several large volumes of chronicles published in England,
Halle, Grafton and Holinshed, and these and similar volumes are all
well illustrated with wood cuts. Foxe’s “Book of Martyrs,” published in
1563 by John Day, is also an example of a well illustrated and popular
book, the cuts in which were all probably made here.
[Illustration: “The Peacock.” Wood engraving by Thos. Bewick, from the
“History of British Birds.” (_Newcastle_, 1797-1804.) [_To face p._
110.]
Wood engravings in England gave way gradually in the seventeenth and
the earlier half of the eighteenth centuries before the advancing tide
of line engraving, but in the latter half of the eighteenth century
Thomas Bewick came to give it a new impetus. Bewick’s style was quite
original, and although his particular “white line” style, good as it
was, does not ever seem to have retained any hold upon the mass of
engravers, yet somehow or other we find that the revival of wood
cutting, both here and abroad, is generally put down to his influence.
Bewick worked on an entirely different principle to that of any of his
predecessors. He gave up imitating the black line of the metal engraver
and used the white line to gain his effects. No doubt this is the true
theory of wood engraving. Bewick took several apprentices, many of whom
afterwards became famous, but, curiously enough, none of them kept long
to their master’s style. In modern days Timothy Cole has revived the
use of the white line; his work is most excellent and learned in every
way. I have never found a wrong line in it, and if Bewick had not shown
the way, and therefore put Mr. Cole in the position of a follower, the
latter would have ranked as the greatest master who has ever worked on
wood on the white line principle.
William Harvey was one of Bewick’s apprentices; he did an immense
quantity of work, which is always excellent. He soon gave up Bewick’s
“white line,” and most of his wood engravings are like line engravings
on copper. The engraving of the Death of Dentatus, after B. R. Haydon,
is Harvey’s most celebrated piece of work. It shows every appearance
and characteristic of a line engraving, but the black marks are in
intaglio. It is a _tour de force_, and cannot but be considered as a
waste of energy. It was engraved upon several blocks clamped together
by an iron band, and prints of it can now and then be picked up at
printsellers for two or three shillings, as it is seldom recognised as
a wood engraving.
Luke Clennell also worked with and helped Bewick, and much of his early
work is like that of his master. But, like Harvey, Clennell soon
evolved a style of his own. He cut some of the beautiful little cuts,
after Stothard, in Rogers’ “Pleasures of Memory.” No doubt the Bewick
training had much influence for good over Clennell’s manner.
Charlton Nesbit followed Bewick closely for a time, and then, like his
fellow apprentices, he worked out his own style. His work is very good
and true, and he was particularly successful in his illustrations to
Northcote’s _Fables_ and _Rinaldo and Armida_.
John Thompson was quite one of our greatest wood engravers. He worked
well into the nineteenth century, and did an immense quantity of
work. He engraved a celebrated set of illustrations to the _Vicar of
Wakefield_, after Mulready, and was also very successful with those to
Tasso’s _La Gerusalemme Liberata_ in 1826. His work is quite different
from that of Bewick.
The nineteenth century in England was rich in numbers of excellent wood
engravers, and a list of their names alone would be a long one. A proof
of the high estimation in which the work of many of these artists was
held is to be found in the fact that their services as engravers were
freely sought by continental publishers of finely illustrated books.
J. B. Jackson, who introduced tone colour-printing, actually worked
with J. M. Papillon in France in the eighteenth century. Then there
were the Landells, Gray, Whimper, Wright, Folkard, and Green, and,
quite late in the century, J. W. Whymper, Horace Harral, James Cooper,
W. J. Linton, the Dalziels, and Swain. These two last have signed an
immense quantity of excellent work, but they were large firms, and
the greater part of their work was done by their workmen. Many of the
artists of this time did most excellent work as designers for wood
engravings, especially Sir John Millais, D. G. Rossetti, Fred. Walker,
Fred. Sandys, Lord Leighton, Birket Foster, Sir E. Burne-Jones, G. du
Maurier, and Cecil Lawson.
[Illustration: FIG. 69.--Knife for engraving on soft wood.]
J. M. Papillon, who worked during the earlier half of the eighteenth
century, belonged to a French family of wood engravers, and wrote a
treatise about wood-cutting with the knife, which is of great interest.
His work is small and excellent. Papillon makes mention of a foreigner
who worked with him and used the _end_ of the wood to work upon, and
that he used a graver. This foreigner is supposed to have been the
English artist J. B. Jackson, who was eminent here not only as an
engraver, but also as the pioneer in the matter of colour-printing from
wood blocks.
No doubt up to about the beginning of the eighteenth century wood
cuts had been made on planed pieces of pear or other soft wood cut
lengthways. The grain upon such a piece of wood necessitating the use
of a knife to cut it, the knife may be a single blade or a double blade
of the kind known as a “scrive,” but it cannot be cut with a solid
graver.
It is possible enough that to Jackson we owe the idea of making
engravings on the cross-cut of a piece of wood, and if so he is
entitled to great honour, as all wood work since his time has been done
in that way. The graver had long been used on metal, but until the
device of cutting blocks across the grain of a hard wood was thought
of it could not be used on wood. Hard wood was now wanted with as
little grain as possible, and box is the ideal.
In the nineteenth century much excellent wood engraving was done in
France. Indeed, after a period of practical non-existence the art once
more became one of great importance, and a school of wood engraving
grew up that was not only very large, but the work done was of very
high quality.
Bewick’s style is not there, although it seems likely that the revival
was really due to his influence; the old black line, resembling the
engraved metal line, holds undisputed sway. Moreover, the French
nineteenth century revival owes much directly to the work and influence
of another great English wood engraver, J. Thompson, and with him
worked an equally great French engraver, H. L. Brevière. These two men
were highly gifted, and their work is always of a high order, and they
met with much powerful support from contemporary engravers, followers
of their own, the excellence of whose work in many instances ran their
own very close.
Among the many engravers of this time whose work is always pleasant
to meet with and admire we may particularly note Thiébault, S. Soyer,
Sears, Porret, Roux, La Coste and both his sons, Rouget, and Nivet.
The work of many of our contemporary English engravers was also much
liked in France, and they often helped to illustrate fine French books.
Among the more notable of these engravers we find the names of Orrin
Smith, Thomas, Samuel, and Mary Ann Williams, and A. Best.
It must be noted that the work of the artists whose work was
interpreted by this school of highly-skilled engravers was admirably
fitted for small book vignettes, especially the military designs so
profusely issued by Meissonier, Horace Vernet, and Raffet, and, for
larger work, the charming figures of Gavarni.
Augsburg in the fifteenth century was a great centre of wood engraving.
A Bible with small woodcuts was issued there about 1470 by Jodoc
Pflanzmann. These cuts were meant to be coloured by hand. Several other
books illustrated with woodcuts were issued by Gunther Zainer and Johan
Bamler.
Then notable illustrated books were published at Ulm and Lubeck,
and from Nuremberg we have the great “Nuremberg Chronicle,” full of
woodcuts, the best of which are cut by Wilhelm Pleydenwurff and Michael
Wohlgemuth. The work in this book gets away from the mere outline, and
we find much clever hatching and shading, but there is much coarseness.
From Basle came Seb. Brant’s celebrated “Narrenschiff,” one of the
most popular books ever written, and illustrated with most amusing
cuts of the various follies of the various sorts of fools described.
Albrecht Dürer did a few illustrations for books towards the end of the
fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries.
Several more illustrated wood books were issued from Nuremberg, Basle
and Zurich, and some of the printers’ devices were designed by Holbein.
During the seventeenth century a lull occurred in the production of
German books illustrated with woodcuts; but the art has always been
popular in Germany, and it never quite died out.
The very decorative “Triumph of the Emperor Maximilian,” with large
woodcuts, designed by Hans Burgkmeier of Augsburg in the early
sixteenth century, was published in 1796. German wood engraving for
books revived in the nineteenth century, and became of high excellence.
German wood engravings have had a certain strength and vigour all their
own from the time of the “Nuremberg Chronicle” until modern times.
Artists, moreover, have not been wanting; the quite delightful
vignettes of A. Schrödter, L. Richter, G. Osterwald, R. Jordan and
others, have received adequate and sympathetic treatment at the hands
of engravers who are second to none. Nuzelmann, E. Kretschmar, A.
Vogel, Beneworth, Joch, and the Leipzig firms of Allanson and Sears,
Nicholls and Bosse, and Peupin, some of whom were foreigners.
Line engraving on a small scale plays an important part in book
illustration. It is the simplest, and yet requires the most technical
skill of all the methods of marking metal surfaces for the purpose
of making prints. The engraver cuts out a thread of metal, producing
a little track on the surface, and to do this properly requires the
utmost skill.
It has been held for a long time that prints from engraved metal plates
owe their existence to the proofs in sulphur which were taken from time
to time from engravings intended to be filled with niello.
In the museum at Berlin there is a print on paper from an engraved
metal plate, representing the Flagellation of Christ. It is German
work and dated 1446. The lettering shows rightly on the print, so the
engraving was made with the intent that prints should be made from it.
There is in the Bargello Museum at Florence a beautiful Pax with a
nielloed plate attributed to Maso Finiguerra, the date of which is
put at 1452. From this plate, before it was nielloed, prints on paper
were taken, and one of them is at Paris. But the letterings on this
engraving read rightly on the metal, so it was not engraved with the
intent that prints should be made from it; indeed, they, as well as the
impressions in sulphur, were only made to help in the working.
So that it is only safe to say that the possibility of making prints
on paper from engraved metal plates was known about the middle of the
fifteenth century both in Germany and in Italy.
To make a print from an engraved plate requires great pressure, as the
paper has to be forced down into every mark, and the resulting mark on
the paper is consequently always in relief.
The principle of a print made from an engraved wood block is that the
projecting parts are covered with a thin film of ink, and when the
paper is lightly pressed down upon these lines it picks up the ink from
the surface wherever it touches it. In the case of an engraved metal
plate, the lines on which are cut in the same way and with a similar
graver to that used for white line engraving on wood, the inking and
printing is quite different. Now it is the incised lines which print
black, and in order to ensure this the whole plate is well rubbed
over with ink so as to fill up all the incised lines, and then the
unengraved polished surface is carefully wiped clean so as to leave
the ink sticking in all the dots, lines and curves. Now damped paper
is very strongly pressed upon the inked plate, so as to be squeezed
right down into every dot, line and curve. The paper consequently is
in relief wherever it has been pressed into a depression, and as there
was ink there waiting for it, it will be found to have picked up and
absorbed all the ink, so that the print shows black lines in low relief.
It will be easily realised that a print from an engraved metal plate
cannot be printed with ordinary type at the same operation a wood-block
can, so that whenever a book occurs in which such engravings show on
the same page with type, there must have been two printings, one strong
for the engraving and one light for the type.
We find, therefore, that in several instances where engraved
illustrations have been used for a book which is for the most part
printed from type, that the small piece of text which comes on the same
page as the engraving, is also engraved. Not only this, but from time
to time entire books have been engraved, illustrations as well as text.
The finest English example of such work is to be found in the beautiful
edition of the works of Horace, plentifully illustrated and engraved
throughout on copper by John Pine. It was published in 1733-7.
John Sturt, who engraved numbers of book frontispieces, also produced a
Book of Common Prayer, engraved throughout on silver, in 1717. He also
engraved many of John Ayres’ calligraphic works. Abroad, especially in
France and Germany, small books have been engraved, in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, by P. Moreau, F. Mazot, Druet, and others,
but none of them are as important as the English. Music books are
engraved, and so are numbers of calligraphic books of small interest.
The first line engravings illustrating any book appear in Bettini’s
“Monte Santo di Deo,” printed in 1477. They are said to be after
designs by Botticelli. Some of the prints are full page and others are
printed on the same paper as the text. They are not very good. The same
kind of illustration appears in Dante’s “Divina Commedia,” printed in
1481. Some of these prints are, however, pasted in, but a few are on
the same paper as the text.
The great excellence of Italian book illustrators on wood seems to
have eclipsed all other kinds. Italian line engravers have excelled in
large plates, but in books there is little of this kind of work that
is at all good. Examples of small work of the kind were done in the
eighteenth century by Grandi, Schedl, Pomarade, I. Frey, and C. Gregori.
In English books line engravings do not appear until 1521, when an
edition of Galen published at Cambridge possesses an engraved border.
Raynald’s “Byrthe of Mankind,” published in 1540, has engraved plates.
From this time engravings appear at intervals until towards the end of
the sixteenth century, when frontispieces and portraits, always printed
on separate paper and inserted as extra leaves, became common.
In the seventeenth century the same style prevailed, engraved portraits
and frontispieces, but gradually small pictures came into use. The
plates are often signed, and we find the name of Renold Elstrack, who
worked also in the preceding century, Marshall, Hole, Cecil, Grover,
and others of less merit.
In the eighteenth century native engravers seem to have given way to
foreigners, and the same thing happened during the early nineteenth
century. We find many beautiful engravings in English books signed
by Du Bosc, Grignion, Scotin, De Launay, and others. Later, in the
nineteenth century, our English line engravers rallied, and we owe much
beautiful work to them. Many of their names are widely known, and their
work will be more highly appreciated as time goes on, especially as
this small line engraving is practically a lost art.
_The Keepsake_, published by Charles Heath, 1827-57, started the
fashion in England of small books illustrated with delicate engravings
on steel, but it must be noted that although there is engraved work in
them, the greater part of the work is really etched. Exquisite work
in this style was done by W. Finden, D. Allen, C. Rolls, T. C. Lewis,
J. H. Robinson, E. Goodall, H. and R. Wallis, W. R. and D. Smith, W.
Humphreys, John Pye, T. S. and F. C. Engleheart, F. and J. Goodyear,
and these engravers were supplied with beautiful subjects by several
of the eminent contemporary artists, J. M. W. Turner, Stothard, Samuel
Prout, and numbers more.
Among the best examples of finely illustrated books of this period the
two volumes of Rogers’ _Italy_ and _Poems_ may safely be noted. They
were published in London in 1830, and the very best results were aimed
at in their production. They are uniform, and usually bound in red
watered silk.
Large numbers of small books illustrated profusely with line engravings
were published about the middle of the nineteenth century. They often
have engraved title-pages, with little pictures in them, the full page
illustration being inserted throughout. The names of both artist and
engraver are usually added at the lower edge of the print.
There are _Oriental Annuals_, _Landscape Annuals_, _New Year’s Gifts_,
_Friendship’s Offerings_, _Comic Offerings_, _Juvenile Forget-me-nots_,
and a host of similar periodicals, and good work is to be found in all
of them. They were either bound in thin panel stamped leather or else
in watered silk, and in either case the binding is of interest, and
wherever it exists it should be carefully preserved. A quaint little
woodcut often appears in these books, printed with the text.
Besides the engravers whose names I have already mentioned, there are
many others whose work appears more particularly in small periodical
publications; among these may be noted J. C. Armytage, Geo. Corbould,
Charles and J. Heath, James Mitan, John Sharpe, R. J. Baker, W.
Greatbach, J. C. Edwards, W. Fry, W. Chevalier, S. Davenport, H.
Robins, C. Warren, T. J. Williams, J. Cousins, W. Miller, S. Sangster,
R. Rhodes, F. Bacon, R. J. and E. Portbury, T. Willmore, R. Brandard,
J. H. Kernot, W. D. Taylor, and G. Hollis.
After about 1850 small line engravings in books began to disappear,
and now they are rarely if ever done. In fact, line engraving has
been killed by mezzotint and photography, and now takes refuge in its
original goldsmiths’ use, or in book plates.
Line engraving in France did not appeal to popular taste until a
comparatively late period. The block engravings in the “Horae” of the
fifteenth century, although they were line engravings, were cut in
the manner of wood blocks, and the method of printing from them was
different to that used in the case of ordinary metal engravings. In
the seventeenth century there were several beautiful books illustrated
by line engravings by Sebastian Leclerc, L. Gaultier, J. Sauné, F.
Chauveau, Le Mire and H. J. Duclos.
In the eighteenth century in France the graceful designs of Ch. Eisen
and J. H. Fragonard found many worthy interpreters. La Fontaine’s
fables and stories provided a suitable literature for these
illustrations, and among them may perhaps be found the high water mark
of small line engraving. Indeed, the work is all so good that any
choice becomes almost invidious; but quite beautiful work was done by
J. B. Patas, Choffard, N. Le Mire, De Longueil, L. Bosse, Delvaux,
Johannot, Leroux, Lefebre, Ficquet, Mottet, Prevost, J. B. Tillard,
J. L. Delignon, C. L. Lingée, Dupréel; and then come L. Halbon, J.
Aliamet, J. Dambrun, J. B. Simonnet, P. Trière, C. S. Gaucher, and many
more, some of whom worked also in the next century.
In the nineteenth century the French level of small engraved
illustrations remained exceptionally high, especially in the earlier
half, but many of the plates have much etching mixed up with line work;
this may very likely mean that the work was done on steel, which will
admit of the production of large editions; but steel is very difficult
to engrave, although it is quite easy to etch. Among the line engravers
who used accessory etching I have noted Pauquet, Aze, P. Choffard, and
De Villiers.
The engravers whose work may be safely considered of high quality are
R. De Launay, Bertonnier, Villerey, P. Savart, H. Dupont, Girardet, J.
P. Marillien, L. Petit, J. F. Ribault, Chifflart, and V. Foulquier.
Towards the end of the century photography came and gradually crowded
out the small line engravers.
An etching is a drawing done with a needle point upon a sheet of metal
protected by a thin impervious coat of soft varnish. The lines made
by the etching needle pierce the varnish or “ground,” and reach down
to the metal, usually copper, exposing it in those places. When the
drawing is complete the plate is put into a bath of strong water,
usually dilute nitric acid, and wherever the surface is not protected
by the ground the acid will eat away the metal.
When now the ground is cleaned off with the help of turpentine, the
original design will be seen transferred to the surface of the copper
in the form of dull lines, shallow if the acid has only been allowed to
act for a short time, but broad, deep and irregular if the “biting” has
been long. So that an etching always has a little more “effect” than
was put into the original work.
It is not necessary here to enter into the mysteries of “stopping out,”
and several other variations of procedure, but it is sufficient to say
that variations of tone and texture _can_ be obtained; but, in fact, so
far as book illustrations go, the etchings I know of are always simple,
and the best of them are those by George Cruickshank.
The printing of etchings is analogous to that of line engravings, and a
similar ink is used. A strong press is required, the paper is damped,
and the impression is in slight relief. Line engravings are always
printed in the same way as a visiting card, the untouched parts are
clean, and print white, but in the case of etchings more ink is usually
left, so that the untouched surfaces often show grey, none of the ink
having been allowed to remain upon the plate. The French call this
“retroussage,” and printers can produce strange effects by its use. A
bad etching can be made to look like a good one; a good etching can be
made to look weak and wretched. In fact, a clever artist printer can
produce a capital picture from a plate which has nothing at all on it
but the ink.
Etchings first appeared in English books about the end of the
seventeenth century, but they are seldom signed, neither are they good.
There is an etched frontispiece to Latroo’s “English Roque,” 1665, and
another to “Æsop’s Fables,” published in the same year.
Wenceslaus Hollar, a Bohemian who worked in London, illustrated a few
English books with etchings in the seventeenth century. Soft ground
etchings printed in red and black appear in Pennant’s “Account of
London,” printed in 1795. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries William Blake made a few etchings for book illustrations.
In the nineteenth century came Alken’s etchings of animals, usually
coloured, Samuel Hewitt, Doyle, and especially the excellent work of
George Cruickshank, which was very much admired by John Ruskin.
[Illustration: Title-page of Grimm’s “German Popular Stories.”
(_London_, 1824.) Illustrated with etchings by George Cruickshank. [_To
face p._ 124.]
Combined with line engraving a number of small illustrations were
published in the nineteenth century. They were etched on steel, and
carefully finished with small line work, with ruled skies. They are
generally classed as engravings, but should, I think, rather be called
etchings.
Etching has not played a very important part in French books any
more than it has in English. There are the amusing sketches of Callot,
good work by Abraham Bosse and Sebastian Leclerc, and in quite recent
times the beautiful etchings by Jules Jacquemart of works of art, in
their way unsurpassed, and marvels of technical skill. I have already
mentioned a few French etchers who combined that work with small line
engraving, probably on steel; of these probably Choffard is best known
and most highly appreciated.
Engraving by dots has been for a long time practised, as by its means
a graduated tone can be more easily obtained than it can by the use of
line alone, and stipple is the same idea carried out by the etching
needle instead of the graver.
Stipple is done by means of small bunches of needles, with which
irregular dots are made in the etching ground and then bitten by acid,
as usual. In most cases a few small finishing dots are put on the
copper by hand afterwards. Stipple is excellent for faces, and is best
known in the work of Bartolozzi, who excelled in it. It is said to have
been invented by Jacob Bylaert, a Dutchman, in 1760.
In England stipple engraving was largely used in the early nineteenth
century for book illustrations. It is found chiefly in faces, and is
generally supported by line engraving or etching. The best stipple
engravers did not illustrate books, but the work of W. Finden, C.
Knight, J. Parker, C. Marr, and W. Holl is always good, though, of
course, very small. Besides these there were numbers of lesser stipple
engravers, whose work is fair--Jenkinson, Dean, H. Cook, C. Wagstaffe,
H. Robinson, and many more.
The same sort of usefulness was found for stipple abroad, for
faces particularly, and it was successfully practised by Pfeiffer,
Vangelisty, and others, but it never took the same hold upon the
Continent that it did here, either in the case of small book
illustrations or in the more important matter of large stipple
engravings.
Mezzotints are not satisfactory if they are on a small scale. Delicate
and minute work cannot be done well by the mezzotint process alone, but
require supplementary line or etched work. So we find that mezzotints
have not been much used for book illustration.
The process of mezzotinting was invented by Ludwig von Siegen, an
officer in the Hessian Army, about 1642, and at first it was practised
chiefly by foreigners, but it soon became the favourite method of
engraving upon metal in England; indeed, the competition of the
mezzotint eventually ruined the slower and more costly process of line
engraving.
Some books concerning mezzotints have explanatory plates in them,
beginning with Le Blon’s “Coloritto,” written about 1721, but these can
hardly be considered as fair instances of ordinary book illustrations.
A copper plate is prepared for mezzotint engraving by being uniformly
roughened all over, so that if it were inked and a print made from it,
the print would show a uniform velvety black. The art of the “scraper”
consists in so skilfully cutting away or burnishing down the roughened
surface of the copper that when a print is made a picture appears. The
scraper works from black to white whenever the surface is scraped or
burnished away, so in exact correspondence the print will show grey
or white. It is quick work, and easy work up to a point, but to make
a first-rate mezzotint is a great art, and only a few engravers have
succeeded in doing it.
Among the first students of the art was Prince Rupert, who was an
excellent artist and an accomplished workman all round. He engraved a
large plate after Spagnoletto, called “The Great Executioner,” and when
John Evelyn wrote a little book called “Sculptura,” which was published
in 1662, and included in it a short description of the new art, the
Prince mezzotinted a plate for him, showing only the head of the great
executioner. This head, the first mezzotint done for a book, is a finer
piece of work than the head in the larger plate.
There were several anatomical plates, mostly printed in coloured
inks, which were mezzotinted about the same time, but they are not
important; then Faber’s portraits of founders of the Colleges of
Oxford and Cambridge were used as illustrations to Rolt’s “Lives of
the Reformers,” published in 1759. These plates bear Houston’s name as
mezzotinter, but this is only one of a number of such re-letterings
which occur in the history of mezzotints.
Robert Dunkarton engraved several book illustrations, mostly
portraits, and he also helped in the mezzotinting of some of the
plates in Turner’s “Liber Studiorum.” He was a portrait painter, and
his mezzotints are better than Faber’s. John Young was an eminent
mezzotinter, and in 1815 he issued a large book of portraits of the
Emperors of Turkey printed in colours. They are not particularly good,
but are interesting as being the first set of mezzotints to be issued
in colour as book illustrations. The book is rare and, if the colour is
strong, of considerable value.
Turner’s “Liber Studiorum” was issued between 1807 and 1819, and many
mezzotinters helped in the work--F. C. Lewis, Charles Turner, W. Say,
R. Dunkarton, G. Clint, J. C. Eastling, T. Hodgetts, W. Annis, H. Dawe,
T. Lipton, and S. W. Reynolds. The plates were not pure mezzotint, but
were strongly etched as well with some aquatinting; the first etching
was done by J. M. W. Turner, and some of the mezzotinting. I think he
probably worked finally upon all the plates in various ways with burin,
scraper and roulette.
Several books of landscapes are illustrated with mezzotints, done on
copper or steel, by T. G. Lupton, many of them after Turner, and John
Constable’s landscapes have been admirably mezzotinted by David Lucas;
perhaps the best known is “English Landscape Scenery,” published in
1855.
In all mezzotints, large or small, it should be noted that the
_condition_ of the print is important. The blacks should be deep and
velvety; if they show greyish or spotted, the print is from an old
plate. Mezzotints on steel last better than if they are on copper. I
know of no foreign books illustrated with mezzotints.
There are several ways of making aquatints, but the best is the oldest.
It was invented by a Frenchman, J. B. Le Prince, towards the end of the
eighteenth century, and although of foreign origin, the art has been
most extensively and successfully practised in England.
Le Prince allowed powdered resin to settle evenly on a copper plate,
fixed the minute grains by heat, and then treated the plate with acid
as if it were an etching. When the plate was cleaned the acid is found
to have bitten a little line round each grain of resin, so that an
aquatint made by this method consists of a series of small rings more
or less thick. The different thicknesses are produced by stopping out
some portions and re-biting others. The general effect of aquatint is
delicate and pleasing, and it can be strengthened where necessary with
a little etching. Aquatint helps its followers considerably, and a
good aquatint made from a drawing or painting will often have luminous
effects that are wanting in the original.
There is one other method of aquatinting that must be mentioned, but
there are more which are too numerous and too unimportant to require
explanation here. It is a modern invention, and consists of coating the
plate with resin dissolved in alcohol; when this dries it breaks up
into little pieces, and the acid can penetrate between these pieces as
in Le Prince’s method. But the resulting prints do not show Le Prince’s
little circles, but small irregular polygons.
Le Prince sold his secret to Charles Greville, and he passed it on to
Paul Sandby, who not only became an eminent aquatinter but published
a book in 1775 called _Twelve Views in Aquatinta_. This drew much
attention to the beautiful new art, and it rapidly became very popular
in England. English aquatinters, like English wood and stipple
engravers, always liked colour, whether added by hand or printed in
ink, and so we find that the large majority of English aquatinters
enjoy the added beauty of colour.
The publishers Ackermann and Boydell both deserve much honour for their
consistent patronage of aquatints, and no doubt our splendid record in
that art is largely due to their enterprise.
Towards the latter part of the eighteenth century we already find
several fine books with hand-coloured aquatint illustrations published
in England, among these are W. Hodge’s _Select Views in India_, 1786;
T. Hassell’s _Picturesque Guide to Bath_, 1793; Combes’ _History of the
River Thames_, with aquatints by J. C. Stadler; E. Orme’s _Twelve Views
of Places in the Kingdom of Mysore_, with aquatints by J. W. Edy; and
H. Repton’s amusing _Sketches of Landscape Gardening_, with moveable
plates to show how good his suggested improvements were, all published
in 1794, and from this time for the next thirty years were numbers of
books issued with coloured aquatints concerning domestic architecture.
Early in the nineteenth century there are still numbers of books
with aquatint views in them: J. Webber’s _Views in the South Seas_,
published in 1808, and Boydell’s _Picturesque Scenery of Norway_, with
aquatints by J. W. Edy, in 1820, and several more.
Then Rowlandson, the caricaturist, aquatinted the illustrations for
Goldsmith’s _Vicar of Wakefield_ in 1817, and the inimitable _Tour
of Dr. Syntax_, by Combe, in 1820, thereby setting the fashion for
caricature in aquatint, which had a considerable vogue.
In Pyne’s _History of the Royal Residences_, the out-door views
are printed in coloured inks, blue for the skies and brown for the
foregrounds. They have additional hand-colouring. It is an important
book, and was published in 1819; the aquatints are engraved by T.
Sutherland, W. F. Bennett, R. Reeve, and others.
Then came a series of fine books on Indian scenery, mostly engraved by
T. Medland, Hassell and Ellis, and many books of English views, mostly
engraved by D. Havell, T. Sutherland, T. H. Fielding, J. Baily, or T.
Cartwright.
Of less importance, but now becoming more esteemed, are the numbers of
graceful costume and fashion plates which were done in aquatint and
coloured by hand from about 1790 to 1840. These books are already much
sought after, and will probably be more and more so in time; the plates
are generally anonymous.
William Daniell illustrated Ayrton’s _Voyage Round Great Britain_ with
beautiful coloured aquatints; it was published in 1825.
There are many cases in which several kinds of work appear on the same
plate; there may be aquatint and etching, mezzotint with etching,
engraving or aquatint, so it is very important to be able to judge from
the aspect of a line or dot or a point by which method it has been
produced.
The magnificent account of the _Coronation of George IV._, published
in 1825, under the care of Sir George Nayler, Garter King of Arms, is
illustrated with mixed engravings, stipple, etching, line, aquatint and
mezzotint, by S. W. Reynolds and other engravers, chiefly after designs
by F. and J. Stephanoff. The plates are coloured by hand, and several
of the special copies have much extra artistic work added. It is said
to be the most expensive book ever published, and it never repaid its
cost, but received a grant in aid from the Government of the day. The
majority of the figures are careful portraits, and it is the highest
authority for the State costume of the time.
Lithography is the art of drawing upon stone in such a way that prints
can be made from the drawing. The drawing has to be done upon a
particular sort of stone either directly or by means of transfer from
lithographic paper, and it can be done either with a point of solid
lithographic ink resembling black chalk, or by a liquid ink, in which
case the drawing is called a lithotint. J. M. Whistler was remarkably
successful in this latter manner, but it had been used long before by
Hullmandel and Cattermole.
The discovery of lithography was due to the experiments of Aloys
Senefelder, a native of Prague, who was born late in the eighteenth
century. He accidentally found that some writing he had put on one of
the stones he used for sharpening his tools upon came off easily on to
paper or linen. Then he tried what effect acid would have, and found
that it would eat away the stone wherever the ink did not prevent it,
so he got a block in low relief. The protective ink is made essentially
of wax, tallow, soap, shellac, and lamp black, and the acid renders
this insoluble, so that when acid is applied to the stone the parts
drawn upon remain unaffected. The drawing ink is now removed, and when
printing ink is applied by means of a roller, it sticks only where the
drawn lines are, and from this inked stone a print can be obtained.
The surface of a lithograph is quite smooth, and the process will not
help an artist in the least--as the drawing is so will the lithograph
from it be; the only difference is in the power of reproduction.
Senefelder was unfortunate; he introduced an art to the world which
has been very largely followed, but his own efforts were failures from
a business point of view. He came to London early in the nineteenth
century, and his methods soon found votaries, but he shortly returned
to Munich, where his brother had assisted him in setting up a
lithographic establishment, and this practically failing, it was taken
over by the Bavarian Government and put under the management of H. J.
Mitterer, a professor of drawing.
But it was in France that lithography made most rapid progress. The
clever French draughtsmen that happened to exist about that time very
quickly mastered the process, and between them they established a
school of lithography that is unequalled. Many of the greatest French
artists worked in it, and some of them specialised in it.
Lasteyrie introduced it, and it was quickly taken up by Horace Vernet,
Pierre Guerin, Charlet, and many others for small book illustrations,
and about 1830 there are large numbers of caricatures done in this
quick and easy way. Then Gericault, Henri Monnier, Eugène Delacroix,
and J. B. Isabey swelled the list of French lithographers, most of
the book illustrations being of small size; and a little later there
is notable work done by Honoré Daumier, Achille Deveria, Raffet, Jean
Gigoux and Gavarni, several of them specialising in military subjects.
Towards the end of the century we find a new set of artists, many of
whom use colour as well as monotint, Fantin-Latour, Chéret, O. Redon,
Gandara and Willett.
The social side of French life is perhaps the most illustrated in
lithography.
In England lithography received its first impetus from Senefelder
himself, who came and worked in London, where in 1819 his _Complete
Course of Lithography_ was published.
C. J. Hullmandel and J. D. Harding were friends and co-workers in the
new art, and they were both adepts at it; Hullmandel drew several of
the beautiful plates of birds for John Gould, and they were afterwards
coloured by hand. From the beginning colour has been much liked by
English lithographers, either added by hand or produced by means of
“chromo-lithography,” that is, several plates inked in different
colours and then printed over each other on one piece of paper.
Roberts’ _Holy Land_ is magnificently illustrated with lithographic
plates by Louis Haghe, a left-handed Belgian, who worked here, and
these plates were afterwards coloured by hand. Clarkson Stanfield and
Cattermole both worked in lithography, and Nash’s _Mansions of England
in the Olden Time_, 1839-49, are familiar to most of us. Nash coloured
several copies by hand.
Owen Jones’ _Plans of the Alhambra_, published 1842-5, are excellent
chromo-lithographs. In quite modern times the old tradition is worthily
upheld by William Griggs, whose colour plates of _Illuminated MSS. in
the British Museum_ are in every way excellent--indeed, for truth and
fidelity to their originals they have never been equalled.
Munich was a sort of headquarters of lithography in the early part of
the nineteenth century, when H. J. Mitterer succeeded to Senefelder’s
establishment there. Among the first lithographers in Germany were J.
M. Mittenleiter, who also invented the art of engraving on stone, and
Joseph Hauber.
Most of the German lithographers contented themselves with making
copies of existing pictures, and one of the finest examples of this
kind of lithography is to be found in the _Gemälde Galerie des K.
Museums in Berlin_, published in 1842, and containing excellent work by
Fr. Jentzen, C. Fischer, and others.
Adolf Menzel did some notable lithographic work about the middle of the
century, and Mouilleron, Eybl, and Ritter were all excellent workmen.
Belgian lithographers have nearly always been very good; besides Haghe,
who worked in England, there were, with others, Tuerlinckoe, Van der
Meulen, and Van Loo.
Although there have been lithographic workshops set up at Rome,
Florence, Turin, Milan, and other towns, the art has never flourished
much in Italy: it never appealed to the sensitive artistic Italian
nature. Such examples as do exist are mostly portraits.
Lithography has been popular in Spain, and Spanish artists have done
excellent work in this manner.
In 1824 J. de Madrazo published the most important Spanish work
illustrated with photographs; it is called _Collection lithographica
de cuadros del Rey ... Fernando VII., lithographiada por habiles
artistas_, among whom are named J. Jollivet, P. Blanchard and A.
Guerrero. The work of all of these is excellent. Lithographic work
in Spain, so far as books are concerned, has been mostly of an
archæological character--views of old buildings or old pictures
particularly. F. Goya, however, worked largely in this manner.
All these methods of illustrating books worked by hand have now been
superseded by one or other of the wonderful processes made possible
by the invention of photography. Some of these are expensive, but
generally they are cheap.
The most elaborate, and when well done the most wonderful, of these
processes is that known as heliogravure. By means of this method
reproductions of line engravings can be made so perfectly that
detection is almost impossible. A metal plate is so treated by help of
a photographic negative that the lines of the engraving are deposited
in an insoluble form upon the plate, which is otherwise clean, then a
thin film of metal is deposited on all the clean places by means of
electrotyping, so that when the lines are dissolved out, they are in
intaglio, just as they were in the original engraved plate. From this
artificial plate prints can be made as if from an engraved plate.
For the mezzotint another method is adopted, known as photogravure,
and this is also a wonderful invention. A metal plate is slightly
roughed--if it could be more roughed it would be better--and then a
photographic relief in gelatine is put upon it and etched. The result
is a plate resembling a fine grain mezzotint, but the prints made from
it are always deficient in the blacks. To remedy this and other defects
which at present seem to be inherent, an engraver generally goes over
the plate with roulette and burnisher. The Photogravure has ruined the
Mezzotint. The coating of the copper-plates with steel largely adds to
their life.
Then we come to the wood engravings, which are all perfectly imitated
by the zinc block, made directly from the original drawing, and set
on a wood block so as to range exactly with type in height. Wash
drawings are closely copied by the half-tone process, which is also
used with blocks that can be printed with type. The drawing to be
copied is photographed through a glass screen very finely etched with
minute lines crossing each other, so that the picture is ultimately
represented by a series of little squares, black or white according
to the tones of the original. But the whites are never quite
satisfactory, the dots of the screen always show a little, so the
dispossessed wood engraver has to be called in after all to touch
them up with a graver. In America, where the half-tone process has
reached a very high degree of excellence, the names of these helpful
engravers are frequently added. A curious “shot-silk” effect is often
seen in half-tone illustrations where the lines of the screen fall at a
particular angle with the lines on the original. The same peculiarity
sometimes shows in the ruled sky lines in the small nineteenth century
line engravings.
The three-colour process consists of half-tone blocks printed in
colours one over the other, but although they look well they are not
particularly true to their originals. The reason of this is that each
block is a little wrongly inked, as the tint of the pigment put upon
it depends entirely upon the printer. He has of course a carefully
coloured key given him to match for each block, but he never quite
succeeds in doing more than get near it. There are line keys and colour
blocks, and half-tone and colour blocks, and many other varieties of
combinations of processes.
The half-tone process is certainly responsible for much charming and
valuable work, but it has done one very great harm not only to itself
but even to literature, it has been the chief cause of the introduction
of clay-laden paper (see Chap. III.).
The beauty of photographic illustrations can be best seen in some of
the recent French illustrated books in colour published by the Société
des Amis des Livres. Other exquisite illustrations are to be found in
Octave Uzanne’s books, many of them from the drawings of Paul Avril.
The way in which many of these illustrations are made to show over the
printed page is often quite charming.
BOOKS TO CONSULT.
BAER, L.--Die Illustrirten Historienbücher des 15 Jahrhunderts.
_Strassburg_, 1903.
BAYARD, E.--Illustrations et les Illustrateurs. _Paris_, 1898.
BLACKBURN, H.--The Art of Illustration. _London_, 1896-1901.
BONNET, G.--Manuel de Phototypie. _Paris_, 1889.
BONNET, G.--Manuel d’Héliogravure et de Photogravure en relief.
_Paris_, 1890.
BOUCHOT, H.--Le Livre, L’Illustration. _Paris_, 1886.
BOUCHOT, H.--Les Livres a vignettes. _Paris._
BRIVOIS, J.--Bibliographie des livres a gravures sur bois du XIX^e
siècle. _Paris_, 1883.
BROUGH, W. S.--Book Illustration. _Leek_, 1891.
BULLOCK, J. M.--Art of Extra Illustration. 1903.
CRANE, W.--Of the Decorative Illustration of Books. _London_, 1901.
DAVENPORT, CYRIL.--Mezzotints. _London_, 1904.
DOBSON, A.--(Chapter on Illustrated Books in Lang’s “The Library.”)
_London_, 1881.
DOBSON, H. A.--Bewick and his Pupils. _London_, 1884.
DUCHOCHOIS, P. C.--Photographic Reproduction Processes. _London_, 1892.
FARQUHAR, H. D.--Grammar of Photo-engraving. _London_, 1895.
GERRING, C.--Notes on Book Illustration. _Nottingham_, 1898.
GEYMET, T.--Traité de Gravure en demi-teint par l’invention du cliché
photographique. _Paris_, 1888.
GEYMET, T.--Traité de Gravure et impression sur zinc. _Paris_, 1887.
GEYMET, T.--Traité de Photogravure. _Paris_, 1886.
GEYMET, T.--Traité de Photo-lithographie. _Paris_, 1888.
GROLIER CLUB, New York.--Catalogue of Engraved Titles and Frontispieces
published in England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
_New York_, 1898.
HARDIE, M.--English Coloured Books. _London_, 1906.
HENRICH, M.--Iconographie de las ediciones del Quijote de M. de
Cervantes Saavedra. _Barcelona_, 1905.
HINTON, A. H.--Handbook of Illustration. _London_, 1895-1905.
HODSON, J. S.--Guide to Art Illustration. _London_, 1884.
HUSON, T.--Photo-Aquatint. _London_, 1897.
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