COVE

Ford Madox Brown (1821-1893) was one of the Pre-Raphaelite artists commissioned by the Dalziel Brothers to provide illustrations for Poets of the NIneteenth Century (1857), a lavishly illustrated Christmas gift book featuring national poets. As a Pre-Raphaelite artist, Brown followed a "truth to nature" approach to his illustrations, for which he used models. This "realist" approach to illustration was distinct from the caricature style of artists like George Cruikshank, John Leech, and John Tenniel, who did not use models for their drawings. For his  illustration for Lord Byron's...

This image is found in A Christmas Carol (1843), created with hand colouredsteel engraving/etching. This is a full page image that accompanies Stave 1 of the book. It is a 9.8x8 cm piece of art is depicting the moment in the story that Scrooge encounters his dead buisness partner. This image was created in a caricature-like way, with realistic elements. Jacob Marely and Ebenezer Scrooge together while Marely is shown with chains created out of ledger books, representing how greed weighs down a persons spirit even in the afterlife. This image, like others in teh book, allow readers...

John Leech's steel engraved image is featured in A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. It is a frontispiece accompanying the second stave. It is a caricature-style image illustrating the annual Christmas ball hosted by Mr. Fezziwig in his workplace. In the image, Mr. Fezziwig can be seen dancing with his wife and workers. This image demonstrates the class disparity of the Victorian era, depicting Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig as "comfortable, oily, rich, fat, and jovial" in keeping with Dicken's description of Mr. Fezziwig's voice in the stave. It contrasts with the depiction of his...

A Christmas Carol (1843). Written by Charles Dickens and illustrated by John Leech. Engraved by Linton. In this three quarter paged, black and white wood engraving vignette illustration on page 119, Scrooge encounters two impoverished children. At the sight of their haggard appearance in the cold, Scrooge faces internal guilt and remorse over his greedy capitalist ways and his hungry pursuit of money and exploitation. The industrial buildings and factories of 19th century London loom in the background, symbolizing the way greed, consumerism, and industrialization entrap the citizens of...

This 8 cm by 6.5 cm woodcut vignette, drawn by John Leech, can be found in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (1843). The image depicts the close of the tale, when Scrooge, a changed man, offers Bob well wishes for the holidays and a raise. He says they will discuss these things over a bowl of smoking bishop. The image uses a caricature style, typical of John Leech, which allows for a very noticeably joyous expression from Scrooge. The room is decorated with evergreen boughs and holly to highlight Scrooges transformation through the image's setting. 

This final 1857 illustration by Dante Rossetti depicts Sir Lancelot gazing down at the Lady of Shalott, who lies dead in a boat. Lancelot is hovering over the Lady of Shalott, emphasizing his freedom and power as a man in Victorian society. The Lady of Shalott, who in a sense, died for her freedom from her restricted life, represents middle class Victorian women at the time, whose lives were governed by strict gender expectations. Women were expected to be homemakers and to stay in the domestic sphere to protect their purity. Women were expected to literally stay inside the home unless...

Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s illustration for Alfred Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott” appears in the Moxon Tennyson on page 75. This illustration was produced through woodcut by the Daziel Brothers. 

Tennyson's sparse approach to description in the poem left much up to the interpretation of the artist when it came to creating and depicting its character and setting. The Lady of Shalott presented a unique opportunity for the Pre-Raphaelite illustrators to project the plight of the isolated artist onto the themes of the poem. This image communicates the tension inherent within an artist...

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, a Pre-Raphaelite artist, designed "Buy from us with a golden curl" as the frontispiece to his sister Christina Rossetti's first commercially published book of poetry, Goblin Market and Other Poems (Macmillan 1862). The subject he chose for his composition was the scene of temptation in "Goblin Market," the book's title poem. Together with the title-page vignette, “Golden head by golden head,” the frontispiece shaped readers’ interpretations by proleptically anticipating events in the poem they had not yet read. At the same time, the hand-written caption, “...

Sidney Paget, a British illustrator in the Victorian era, is most famously known for his illustrations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. The image above is one of Paget’s 9 vignettes included in “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” featured in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes which was released on February 1892 in The Strand Magezine .This specific vignette depicts the moment in which the iconic Sherlock Holmes “[springs] from the bed, [strikes] a match, and lashe[s] furiously with his cane at the bell-pull” (Doyle 205). The phrase “HOLMES LASHED FURIOUSLY” is placed under the...

Sidney Paget’s black and white watercolour illustration, “At the foot of the stairs she met this Lascar scoundrel” is one of several of the artist’s drawings for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s short story, “The Adventures of the Man With the Twisted Lip”. The story was first featured in an 1891 issue of The Strand Magazine, then later published alongside a series of other short stories entitled The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, in 1892. Paget (1860-1908) grew notorious from his illustrations for the Sherlock Holmes stories, visually canonizing the character based off Doyle’s basic...

Sidney Paget’s illustration “we had the carriage to ourselves” is a photographic reproduction of watercolour located on the second page of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Boscombe Valley Mystery.” The story with Paget’s illustration was first published in Strand Magazine in October 1891 before being rereleased as a part of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes on October 14th, 1892. This is the first of nine images illustrated by Paget to be featured in the story and the fourth of 37 of Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories to be illustrated by Paget, a partnership that was only ended by Paget’s death...

This image, entitled, "Golden head by golden head," is a title-page vignette by Dante Gabriel Rosetti for his sister's work, Goblin Market and Other Poems, published in March of 1862 by Macmillan and Co. Dante Gabriel Rosetti was one of the artists most central to the Pre-Raphaelite movement. As such, the conventions of this particular artistic style are made evident through D.G. Rosetti's usage of heavy shadow and tone, and an attempt to realistically capture the likenesses of the poem's two heroines, sisters Laura and Lizzie. The image is proleptic in nature, in that it...

The image that I have selected is a Pre-Raphaelite illustration for the poem The Lady of Shallot by Alfred Tennyson, published in the Moxon Tennyson. The image is illustrated by artist William Holman Hunt and engraved by the Dalziels in 1857. It measures 4.2 x 3.6 inches on the page, and showcases the Lady featured in the poem, entangled in a web of her own weaving with multiple Pre-Raphaelite images showcased in the mirrors pictured behind her. The image is a wood-carved engraving previously drawn by a Pre-Raphaelite artist. This image speaks to the second wave of popularity that...

The title-page vignette of Goblin Market and Other Poems, by Christian Rossetti, is a wood engraving illustrated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti in 1862. The illustration was captioned, “Golden head by golden head.” The illustration shows Laura and Lizzie sleeping in an intimate embrace. Dante Gabriel Rossetti demonstrates conformity to the text as he illustrates the sisters almost identically. He is essentially using the poem as references, as Christina Rossetti describes the sisters as, “Like two blossoms on one stem.” He also included the first line of the stanza, “Golden head by golden head...

Sidney Paget’s “He is a professional beggar” is the fifth of ten illustrations found in Doyle’s short story “The Man with the Twisted Lip;” the illustration is located on page 139 of The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes (1892).  “The Man with the Twisted Lip” was the eight Sherlock Holmes story, first published in the Strand Magazine in December of 1891.  The story begins with Dr. Watson coming to the aid of his wife’s friend; the woman is distraught, claiming her husband, an opium addict, is missing.  After helping the couple, Watson finds Detective Holmes in disguise at...

“The Ghosts of Departed Usurers, or, The Phantoms” is an illustration by John Leech, found in Charles Dickens’ novella, A Christmas Carol. It is a vignetted, black and white, woodcut engraving found in the novella’s first stave. The image depicts various spirits in the background, who have revealed themselves to Scrooge as an indication of what he will become. This is in contrast to the foreground, which shows a homeless woman without shelter sitting down. John Leech’s traditionally cartoonist style allows for an expressive depiction of the scene, coupled with the harsh, dark...

William Holman Hunt was one of the prolific founding members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood artist group. His artwork is well-known for its careful attention to detail and brightly-coloured palettes, interwoven with Christian symbolism. His art piece, The Lady of Shalott, which was published in 1857 is no exception, featuring this characteristic religious subject matter. The 1857 illustration was first sketched out by Hunt and then etched into a wood-cut engraving by John Thompson, one of the most renowned wood-engravers of the time period. The engraving was then pressed onto...

This image is specifically chosen for the image gallery because it is illustrated by Laurence Housman, but as we know, Christina Georgina Rossetti actually deliberately asked Laurence Housman to use pen and ink to keep the goblins looking as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, her brother, had illustrated them originally.  So, with that being said, Laurence Housman dedicated a lot of time to perfecting the exact copies of the Goblins in which Dante Gabriel Rossetti had created. We are looking at Laurence Housman’s image here, but if you visit Lorraine Janzen's curation of ...

"The Race" is the fourth illustration in the 1896 version of The Were-Wolf, written by Clemence Housman and published by The Bodley Head. It is a wood engraving from a pen and ink drawing of Laurence Housman. "The Race" depicts the pursuit of White Fell through the woods by Christian as midnight approaches. Christian believes her to be a were-wolf and wants to kill her in her wolf form before she kills her next planned victim, Sweyn. 

The illustration uses light and shadow to juxtapose the feminine and the masculine. White has commonly been associated with the feminine,...

“The Eyes of Herod” is one of 16 full plate illustrations in the 1894 English edition of Oscar Wilde’s Salome, illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley. Beardsley’s illustrations were photomechanically printed onto Japanese vellum via half-tone printing that was popular at the end of the century. The illustration features Beardsley’s emblematic signature, located on the left of the image between underneath the leaves of the trees. “The Eyes of Herod” is notable as it condenses several characteristics of the Salome illustrations as a whole as well as exemplifies Beardsley’s Decadent art...

This image represents the feminist tones throughout Christina Rossetti’s poem Goblin Market . Christina Rossetti takes a religious approach to her story telling technique which is very popular in Victorian literature. Instead of telling the traditional story of temptation and a woman tempting a man, it is rather the masculine figures of the Goblins tempting the women. This role reversal gives power to the women and shows men as something other than the hero or the protagonist of life. This is shown in the wood engravings done by Dante Gabriel Rossetti in which the goblins, who are...

In 1907, Oscar Wilde’s (1854-1900) play “Salomé” was written – “translated from the French of Oscar Wilde with sixteen illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898)”.  This image, titled “Woman in the Moon” is the very first full-page image created with line block print on Japanese vellum that is found in Oscar Wilde’s play. Aubrey Beardsley is also known to have illustrated the first four volumes of the Yellow Book (1894-1897). This black and white block print image depicts a naked man and a woman in a gown that hits the ground look towards the moon to the left of the image with...

First published in 1894, with the English translation of the play, ‘The Peacock Skirt’ is one of sixteen black and white ink framed inset illustrations drawn by Aubrey Beardsley for Oscar Wilde’s play, Salome: A Tragedy in One Act. The illustration depicts the princess Salome, regaled in an elaborate skirt and headdress that are reminiscent of a peacock, conversing with the character known as ‘the young Syrian’. Aubrey Beardsley’s artistic style is a nod to the aesthetic style that emerged in the latter half of the nineteenth century known as art nouveau, as well as the movement of...

This black-and-white wood-block print by Aubrey Beardsley depicts the Page of Herodias mourning the death of the Syrian Captain. "Platonic," in its title, refers to the Greek philosopher Plato. Stylistically, it is in accord with the other illustrations Beardsely produced for Salome, exhibiting the aesthetics of the Art Nouveau and Aestheticist movements of which he was a part. It is highly geometric, most obviously in the depiction of the tree in the midground. It makes use of negative space - the entire upper-left quadrant of the piece is left empty. Both the Page of Herodias...

The illustration for “The Luck of the Roses,” appears on page 24 of Laurence Housman’s House of Joy (1895). The illustrator, as well as the author was Laurence Housman. The wood engraved illustration is the first thing the reader is exposed to while interacting with the story. He was largely inspired by the Pre-Raphaelites, therefore proving to be very evident in his style of writing an illustrating. He worked to challenge the conventional way in which Victorians would often create art. The illustration depicts an idyllic garden scene that positions the wife and husband at the...

The illustration "The Moon-Flower" by Laurence Housman is placed on page 136 of The House of Joy (1895). Housman completed both the writing, designing and illustrating for this collection of Victorian stories. This wood engraved illustration demonstrates a woman who is watering her garden and is reached out to by another figure that is hidden within the bushes. When immediately looking at the illustration without reading the story, there is not much to understand about the image without context. The male figure is the Prince, and the woman is someone that he discovers has been...

The Were-Wolf, written by Clemence Housman, is a short story first published in Atalanta: A Magazine for Girls in 1890, with these illustrations by Everard Hopkins. The story origniated as an oral tale that Housman told to the other women in her wood-engraving class. It was later published on its own in 1896 with John Lane at the Bodley Head, for which Laurence Housman completed the pen-and-ink illustrations and Clemence herself completed the wood engraving. Rol’s Worship is a full-page illustration that can be found facing page 8 of the second published version...

“The Finish” is a wood cut graving done by Clemence Housmans of her brother Lawrence Housmans illustrations based on her short story ‘The Werewolf’. The story was officially published in 1896 by John Lane the Bodley Head but did appear in a where Laurence Housman worked but a copy of the story did appear in a volume of 'Atalanta' which was a womans magazine in 1890. The engraving depicts an important moment of the story in when Christian runs in front of White Fell and she tackles him with a feint punch with her right hand and leaps on top of him. The moment comes right before White Fell...