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Mary Darly (flourished 1756-1779) managed a London print shop call The Acorn, first on Ryder’s Court, near Cranbourn Alley and later at 39 Strand, on the corner of Buckingham Street. Here’s a modern map to see where she worked:


View Mary Darly in a larger map

Darly designed and sold a variety of uncomplicated caricatures of politicians and upper class women’s fashion. Mary also taught etching and printing, probably to the very ladies she was satirized in her prints. Her husband, Matthew Darly (flourished 1741-1778) was also a printmaker and their penchant for both signing prints “M. Darly” has led to some confusion over authorship.

Mary Darly is credited with writing (and engraving) the first manual to drawing caricatures, A Book of Caricaturas on 59 Copper-Plates (1762), seen here. There is only one page of commentary, three pages of instruction, and a number of specimens.

Mary Darly (flourished 1756-1779), A Book of Caricaturas: on 59 Copper-Plates, with Ye Principles of Designing in that Droll & Pleasing Manner, with Sundry Ancient & Modern Examples & Several Well Known Caricaturas (Cornhill [London]: Printed for John Bowles, 1762). All etched and engraved. Graphic Arts GA 2005-2501N

Our plate is the frontispiece for volume one, engraved by Pierre Tanje (1706-1761) after a design by the Dutch painter Louis Fabricius Dubourg (1693-1775). A quick check of Princeton University’s copy showed that the plate had not been removed from Princeton’s set and so, we now have two copies of this engraving: one bound and one unbound.

Albertus Seba collected exotic plants, snakes, birds, insects, shells, lizards and other animals. At first, these specimens were part of his profession, used to mix treatments in his pharmacy. But then, collecting grew into a personal obsession. In the early eighteenth century his entire collection was sold to Peter the Great (1672-1725) and moved to St. Petersburg, helping to establish the Russian Academy of Sciences.

For the complete set, see Albertus Seba (1665-1736), Locupletissimi Rerum Naturalium Thesauri Accurata Descriptio (Amsterdam: Wetsten, Smith, Jansson-Waesberg; 1734-65). Rare Books EX Oversize 8607.847e

In 1847, inspired by William Hogarth’s Rake’s Progress, George Cruikshank published a graphic narrative in eight plates showing one man’s descent into sin, poverty, and insanity, due to alcoholism. More than 100,000 copies of The Bottle were sold in the first few days. The book was exported to America and Australia, dramatized at eight London theaters simultaneously, and performed as a magic lantern show.

George’s father, Isaac Cruikshank (1756-1811), was also a successful caricaturist until he died in a drinking contest. George was himself a heavy drinker until 1847, when he signed a vow of total abstinence. The Bottle was first published while he was still drinking.

The title page for an 1881 edition carries the following message: “Mr. George Cruikshank thinks it right to state that the first edition of this Bottle (the title of which ought to have been THE BLACK BOTTLE) was first published in 1847, double the size of this edition, and sold at One Shilling. And he wishes it to be further understood that these smaller plates are taken from the original Etchings, which he has in his own possession.”

“And Mr. George Cruikshank’s [objective] in producing this work of the Bottle was to assist, if possible, in putting a stop to the poverty, misery, wretchedness, insanity, and crime which are caused by strong drink. And this Bottle was published before G.C. became a Teetotaler; but upon mature reflection he came to the conclusion that nothing would ever stop these dreadful evils but Universal Total Abstinence from all intoxicating liquors; and thus having come to the belief that it was of no use preaching without setting an example, George Cruikshank in the same year, 1847, became a Total Abstainer.”

Cruikshank reproduced his drawings by glyphography, a quicker, cheaper way of making printing plates than carving wood blocks or etching plates with acid. Patented in 1842, the glyphographic plate was made by covering copper with a thick wax resist and drawing through the wax to expose parts of the metal. The plate was then electroplated creating a metal relief line, similar to the etched metal relief plates of William Blake but much less detailed or elegant. The relief plate can then be letterpress printed along with a caption or other text.

Flavius Josephus (37-ca.100), The Whole Genuine and Complete Works of Flavius Josephus, the Learned and Authentic Jewish Historian and Celebrated Warrior (New-York: William Durell, 1792). (GAX) Oversize Hamilton 207f

Josephus was a first century Jewish historian. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, Josephus’s second work, the Jewish Antiquities (Ioudaike Archaiologia), contains in twenty books the whole history of the Jews from the Creation to the outbreak of the revolt in A.D. 66. His writings were translated into English in 1609 by Thomas Lodge (1558?-1625) and published as: The Famous and Memorable Workes of Iosephus, a Man of Much Honour and Learning among the Iewes. (William H. Scheide Library (WHS) 24.5.12).

The front cover of this early American edition is stamped in gold letters with the name of Cornelius Brinckerhoff, who was one of the original subscribers. The book is impressively illustrated with sixty plates drawn by European artists Conrad Martin Metz (1749-1827), Thomas Stothard (1755-1834), and Richard Corbould (1757-1831), then engraved in wood by some of the leading American artists of the period, including Alexander Anderson (1775-1870), Cornelius Tiebout (1773-1832), Amos Doolittle (1754-1832), William Rollinson (1762-1842), J. Allen (active 18th century), Benjamin Tanner (1775-1848), and Elkanah Tisdale (1768-1835).

Above left: The Six Days Work of Creation. Above right: A Correct Map of the Countries surrounding the Garden of Eden or Paradise.

John James Audubon (1785-1851), Tamias Quadrivittatus, Striped Ground Squirrel, 1841. Two pen and watercolor drawings. Gifts of John Stanton Williams, Class of 1925. GC154 John James Audubon Collection. Drawn for Audubon’s Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America. No. 5, Plate 24 (below).

The last ten years of Audubon’s life were spent documenting four-legged mammals. He traveled up the Missouri River and around the Southern United States with his collaborator, Reverend Dr. John Bachman (1790-1874). The original folio edition of The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America (1845-1848) contains 150 colored lithographs executed by the British engraver John T. Bowen (1801-ca. 1856), working in Philadelphia. These prints were made after watercolor drawings, about half of which are the work of Audubon and the other half were by his son, John Woodhouse Audubon (1812-1862).

Two drawings for the Striped Ground Squirrel were completed in May 1841 (the final plate combined them into one image of four squirrels). Audubon noted, “We met with this species as we were descending the Upper Missouri … we saw it first on a tree; afterwards we procured both old and young among the sandy gulleys and clay cliffs, on the sides of the ravines near one of our encampments.”

This drawing comes to Princeton thanks to John Stanton Williams (1902-1982, Class of 1925), who also donated Audubon’s shotgun. Mr. Williams was the founder of the Shaker Museum in Old Chatham, N.Y. and an ardent collector of Audubon’s work.

Often overshadowed by Birds of North America, the imperial folio edition of The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America is a scholarly and artistically beautiful work. It was not until 1952 that Quadrupeds came to Princeton University as a gift from Edwin N. Benson, Jr. Class of 1899 and Mrs. Benson, in memory of their son Peter Benson, Class of 1938. Our copy of the first edition (three volumes) was bound at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, stamped M.P.

Elisha Dexter, Narrative of the Loss of Whaling Brig William and Joseph, of Martha’s Vineyard, and the Sufferings of Her Crew for Seven Days, a Part of the Time on a Raft in the Atlantic Ocean: with an appendix, containing some remarks on the whaling business, and descriptions of the mode of killing and taking care of whales: with plates descriptive of some of the principal scenes. 2nd ed. (Boston: Charles C. Mead, 1848). Graphic Arts GAX 2011- in process

Elisha Dexter had a financial interest in the ship and published this narrative to recoup his losses. OCLC notes only one institutional copy of Dexter’s first edition and ten of the second, enlarged and improved edition. This acquisition will make it eleven.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) wrote the satirical household manual Directions to Servants in 1745 (RHT 18th-581) and eight years later, Jane Collier (1715?-1755) followed with An Essay on the Art of Ingeniously Tormenting (Ex 3684.585.333). Her anti-etiquette handbook provided advice on how to nag and was quickly reprinted six times.

In 1809, an illustrated edition was planned by the popular print publisher Thomas Tegg (1776-1846). The new, corrected, revised, and illustrated Essay featured five plates designed by George Moutard Woodward (1760-1809). A folded frontispiece was etched by Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827) after Woodward’s drawing (GA Rowlandson 1808.11).

Collier’s narrator advised, “If you have no children, keep as large a quantity of tame animals as you conveniently can. If you have children, a smaller number will do. Shew the most extravagant fondness you possibly can for all these animals. Let them be of the most troublesome and mischievous sort, such as cats, monkeys, parrots, squirrels, and little snarling lapdogs. Their uses for the Tormenting [of] your servants are various.”

Woodward’s frontispiece, as described by Joseph Grego (1843-1908), includes a Savoyard with a barrel-organ and a troop of dancing dogs; a Frenchman with a dancing bear; and a showman dragging a dromedary, with a monkey perched on its back pulling the animal’s ears. Everyone is taunting or torturing someone else.

Graphic Arts has copies of the print in the bound volume, as a separate sheet, and in Caricature Magazine, or Hudibrastic Mirror, another project on which Woodward, Rowlandson, and Tegg were collaborating in 1808. (GA Rowlandson 1807.5f).

See also Joseph Grego (1843-1908), Rowlandson the Caricaturist (London: Chatto and Windus, 1880). Graphic Arts (GARF) Oversize NE642.R7 G8q

The Satirist, or Monthly Meteor was founded and edited by George Manners (1778-1853). Beginning in October 1807, the monthly journal exposed the foolishness of contemporary politicians, opening with a folded frontispiece caricature. Manners sold the magazine in 1812 to the Scottish journalist William Jerdan (1782-1869), who ran it until 1814.

This print is signed by The Caricaturist General. Several others in The Satirist are designed by Sylvester Scrutiny. Neither artist can be identified. Many are etched by “de Wilde” e.g. Samuel De Wilde (1751-1832), a portrait painter and etcher who specialized in theatrical subjects.

Bony’s Visions or a Great Little Man’s Night Comforts was published in volume 9, p. 165 as an illustration to “The Vision of Buonaparte,” p.110-21, which claims to be the Emperor’s account of a dream the night after his son’s birth.

In it, we see Napoleon, wearing a night-shirt, leap from a canopied bed, terrified at the demons, goblins, and ghosts that surround him. He holds a dagger and calls, “Duroc, Savory, Roustan, aux armes aux armes.” Napoleon’s son is nursed by a demon, who says: “Dear Image of my darling Nap, / Suck milk of Hell instead of pap.”

Near the bed is a coffin marked with ‘N’ and a crown; on this are a rat and two birds; a stork and an owl. An imp with antlers, crouching on the bed-curtain, is about to knock off with a wand the crown surmounting Napoleon’s night-cap.

There is good reason the prints in The Satirist are rarely credited. George Manners and his writers were the targets of multiple lawsuits. The magazine was only two years old when Manners wrote Vindiciæ Satiricæ, or a Vindication of the Principles of the “Satirist,” (1809) documenting the action brought by Peter Finnerty.

Three years later, Thomas Gill wrote, Libels: a Statement of the Trial of an Indictment against George Manners, … 1st June, 1811, for Libels in The Satirist of the 1st May, 1809, and 1st September, 1810, on the Character of William Hallett, Esq., upon which Indictment the Defendant was Found Guilty….

In the third volume, Manners published a statement:
Notwithstanding the unparalleled opposition which we have experienced, and the multitude of hostile scoundrels whom we have encountered, our publication is daily increasing its circulation….

We have dragged from their filthy dens a horde of miscreants, who battened on the fruits of slander, who mangled and destroyed alike the characters of the guilty and the innocent, and who, the moment we exposed them to the public eye, have either shrunk into their original insignificance, or only been noticed like gibbet ted murderers, for the enormity of their crimes.

…We defy our enemies to point out a single instance where we have inflicted unmerited punishment, or bestowed unjust commendation. …Adieu for the present, dear Sir Richard, thou hast afforded us much amusement, but more melancholy reflections on the pride, vain glory, and hypocrisy of mankind: if we have waged war against thy vanity, folly, and—errors, remember, we were not the first to kindle the flame!

See also William Jerdan (1782-1869), The Autobiography of William Jerdan (London: A. Hall, Virtue & Co., 1852-53).Firestone Library 3802.4.31

The Satirist, or Monthly Meteor, 1807-1814. Graphic Arts Collection Cruik 1808 v.1-14. Gift of Richard Waln Meirs, Class of 1888.

Holbein’s designs were originally cut and printed in 1526 for a dance of death alphabet and then, included in an Old Testament. In 1538, forty-one of the blocks were published under the title Les simulachres & historiées faces de la mort avtant elegamtment pourtraictes, with a bible quote at the top and a poem by Gilles Corozet below. The book was banned but new editions continued to appear every few years.

This 1547 expanded edition includes fifty-seven woodcuts. The artist of the new plates remains unidentified. They are interspersed with Holbein’s designs, with no explanation as to why another artist’s work was included. In addition, three of the plates in the Princeton volume, including the title page, have contemporary hand coloring. Here are a few samples.

Thanks to John Delaney for identifying the instrument hanging at the center as an armillary sphere, described by Ptolemy as a zodiacal instrument of six rings, designed to determine the locations of celestial objects. For more, see www.hps.cam.ac.uk/starry/armillary.html

Another example of modern street cries was made in China by Samuel Victor Constant, who served there as an assistant to a military attaché from 1925 to 1937. While in Peking, he studied at the College of Chinese Studies, completing his master’s thesis, entitled “Calls, Sounds and Merchandise of the Peking Street Peddlers” in 1936. A copy of the work was commercially published that same year.

Samuel Victor Constant, Calls, Sounds & Merchandise of the Peking Street Peddlers with Twenty-Five Wood Engravings by Rosemary Covey (Newtown [Pa.]: Bird & Bull Press, 1993). Copy 182 of 200. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) 2003-1335N

Paper pattern peddler

Dried fruit and nut peddler

Barber

Donald Walker. British Manly Exercises: in which rowing and sailing are now first described; and riding and driving are for the first time given in a work of this kind; as well as the usual subjects of walking, running, leaping, vaulting, balancing, skating, climbing, swimming, wrestling, boxing, training, &c., &c., &c. Philadelphia: Thomas Wardle, 1836 [i.e., 1837]. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) 2006-1726N

Donald Walker was the Jack Lalanne of the nineteenth century. An expert on physical fitness and training, his first book (for men only) was published in 1834 and quickly sold out. Ours is an American reprint from a few years later, at the same time that Walker adapted his training exercises for women and published a companion volume, “calculated to preserve and improve beauty.”

Donald Walker, Exercises for Ladies: calculated to preserve and improve beauty, and to prevent and correct personal defects, inseparable from constrained or careless habits. 2nd ed.: with great additions and improvements as well as original communications from Madam Dulcken on the proper seat at the pianoforte, from Mr. Bochsa on the proper seat at the harp, from Mr. Schulz on the proper seat at the guitar, &c. &c. &c. London: Thomas Hurst, 1837. Rare Books (Ex) 2005-2464N

A collection of drinking songs (without music) by an anonymous author using the pseudonym Rumfusticus Bibulus. The text and songs are all attacks on abstinence by the fictitious Anti-Temperance Society. Here’s a piece:

“The Publicans, as well as every other branch of the community, were aware that recent improvements in modern science had effected a Rail Road from this Earth to the Moon, in which part of the Isle of Sky Bacchus has an airy summer residence; they therefore resolved to send up by the new Steam Coach, one of the Victualler Chiefs, to invite their jovial patron down to head their forces, and to fight their battles with their foes, The Tee-Totallers.”

Robert Riviere (1808-1882) established a bindery in Bath around 1829, moving to London eleven years later where he opened a shop on Great Queen Street, and then, on Piccadilly. Riviere was the top of the line and this small satirical volume must have had an important backer to finance a custom Riviere binding and six aquatinted plates by Cruikshank.

A Meeting of Victuallers

The Victuallers of old,
Were jolly and bold,
And quaff’d Brandy and Water gaily,
And were all well nurs’d
With a quart of the First,
To a pint of pump water daily!

Water when mix’d up with Spirits strong store,
No Publican dreams of scorning,
But of Water alone, why—he drinks no more,
Than his pots supply,
Of the drops that lie
In his pewter pints of a morning!

When George Cruikshank (1792-1878) published a group of fairy tales using a form of social realism not previously seen by the Victorian public, his friend and sometimes collaborator Charles Dickens (1812-1870) objected. In his journal Household Words (no. 184, vol. VIII, 1 October 1853, pp. 97-100), Dickens wrote a humorous but heartfelt reply, titled “Frauds on the Fairies.” A complete transcript of Dickens’ essay is available at: http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/pva/pva239.html
but here is a taste.

“We must assume that we are not singular in entertaining a very great tenderness for the fairy literature of our childhood. What enchanted us then, and is captivating a million of young fancies now, has, at the same blessed time of life, enchanted vast hosts of men and women who have done their long day’s work and laid their grey heads down to rest.”

“…In an utilitarian age, of all other times, it is a matter of grave importance that Fairy tales should be respected. Our English red tape is too magnificently red ever to be employed in the tying up of such trifles, but every one who has considered the subject knows full well that a nation without fancy, without some romance, never did, never can, never will, hold a great place under the sun.”

“…We have lately observed, with pain, intrusion of a Whole Hog of unwieldy dimensions into the fairy flower garden. The rooting of the animal among the roses would in itself have awakened in us nothing but indignation; our pain arises from his being violently driven in by a man of genius, our own beloved friend, MR. GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. That incomparable artist is, of all men, the last who should lay his exquisite hand on fairy text. In his own art he understands it so perfectly, and illustrates it so beautifully, so humorously, so wisely, that he should never lay down his etching needle to “edit” the Ogre, to whom with that little instrument he can render such extraordinary justice. But, to “editing” Ogres, and Hop o’-my-thumbs, and their families, our dear moralist has in a rash moment taken, as a means of propagating the doctrines of Total Abstinence, Prohibition of the sale of spirituous liquors, Free Trade, and Popular Education.”

In fact, it was probably Hellenistic, from the second or at the earliest, the first century. The Tabula was well known in antiquity, and after the first modern publication in the late fifteenth century, popular in Europe through the eighteenth century (such as this example).

Pepoli’s bilingual text is a dialogue describing a vast panoramic painting of human life in allegorical terms, and depicting the dangers and temptations that the frail human pilgrims encounter. It is an attempt to show that only the proper development of our mind and the possession of real virtues can make us truly happy. Parallels are often drawn between this work and John Bunyons’ The Pilgrims’ Progress.

Frontispiece is based on a design by Hans Holbein (below), although Pepoli’s includes a key at the foot of the plate identifying the highlights and low points of human progress, such as genius, luck and happiness, but also misery, penitence, folly of love, and much more.

Below: Hans Holbein’s title page with the Tabula Cebetis, metalcut, 1521. Kunstmuseum Basel. First used in De patienta, in Quintus Septimius Tertullian’s Opera …, edited by Beatus Rhenanus, Basel: Johann Froben, July 1521.

Above: Cebes, of Thebes, Paráfrasis árabe de la tabla de Cebes. Traducida en castellano é illustrada con notas por Pablo Lozano y Casela. (Madrid: Imprenta Real, 1793). Rare Books (Ex) 2010-1020N

Below: Hendrick Laurenszoon Spieghel (1549-1612), H. L. Spieghels Hertspieghel en andere zede-schriften (Amsterdam: Hendrik Wetstein, 1694). Rare Books (Ex) N7710 .S64 1694

“The assault and the prosecution called universal attention to the affair; the dreams were published everywhere and produced great effect. About the same time another local excitement aided the general cause. Mr. Delavan exposed the methods of the Albany brewers, whom he charged with procuring water for their business from a foul pond covered with green scum and defiled with the putrid remains of dead cats and dogs. Eight brewers brought suits against him, claiming damages to the amount of three hundred thousand dollars, but did not succeed in recovering a dime.”

From Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, Volume 10 By John McClintock (Firestone library, BR95 .M335 1873)

As a pacifist, soon to be member of the French communist party, Masereel had great sympathy for the work of Henri Barbusse (1873-1935), who was also politically outspoken. Both campaigned in 1921 in favor of Sacco and Vanzetti. 1921 was also the year Barbusse completed Le Couteau entre les dents (The Knife Between My Teeth), which reflected his sympathy with Bolshevism.

Edition Schwarze Seite (Black Page Edition) is the small press of German artists Anne Buessow and Eckhard Froeschlin. http://www.froeschlin-buessow.de. Froeschlin writes “our books are a combination of original graphic art: etchings, woodcuts or lithographies, with letterpress, mostly handset texts.” For the last twelve years, Froeschlin has spent time each year in Nicaragua, holding printing workshops and collaborating with the TallerContil group in Matagalpa. Four artists’ books emerged from this project, specifically focused on the culture, poetry, and graphic arts of Nicaragua.

The TallerContil started with woodcuts printed in the most basic conditions and evolved to a well-fitted studio boasting an etching press and a Hollander beater, both built in Matagalpa. The two volumes seen here resulted from the Wuppertal-Matagalpa friendships. Note: There will be a workshop about this collaboration at the upcoming CODEX III conference. http://www.codexfoundation.org.

Above, Pablo Antonio Cuadra (1912-2002) [poetry], Eckhard Froeschlin [etchings], El Nicán-Náuat (Wuppertal: Editions Schwarze Seite, 2003). Edition: 25. Graphic Arts GAX 2010- in process

Below: Ernesto Soto [short stories], Eckhard Froeschlin [etchings], Casas Perdidas = Fundstücke [Lost Homes] (Wuppertal: Editions Schwarze Seite, 2010). Edition: 25. Texts in Spanish and German translated by Guenter Schmigalle. Handmade mould paper by Danilo Rivera, Matagalpa, using banana leaf fibers. Handbound by Roger Green using Nicaraguan coffee bags. Graphic Arts 2010- in process