The Wood Engravers' Self-portrait : The Dalziel Archive and Victorian Illustration

The Wood Engravers’ Self-Portrait focuses on the Dalziel Brothers, the leading image-makers of Victorian Britain. It is the first major study of the Dalziels, combining expert archival research with a radical methodology: it incorporates detailed examination of printmaking techniques, a focus on word–image relations in illustration, and a creative-critical approach to theory. Between 1839 and 1893, Dalziel Brothers made around 54,000 illustrations. These range from works of global influence – such as the illustrations to Lewis Carroll’s Alice books, novels by Charles Dickens, and landmark Pre-Raphaelite prints – to intricate and fascinating unknown works, ranging from brilliant scientific illustrations to keep-fit diagrams and Cadbury’s advertisements. The Wood Engravers’ Self-Portrait tells the multifarious stories of the Dalziel artists and employees; these were discovered by Stevens during an AHRC-funded fellowship, in partnership with the British Museum, where she catalogued the Dalziels’ unique archive for the first time. This book is the culmination of knowledge gathered through this project. As well as exploring the Dalziel family and the works they made, this study addresses the challenges of uncovering and understanding creative work made by low-paid and supposedly mechanical artists (such as the precarious freelance engravers hired by Dalziel). It investigates the image firm’s role in shaping aspects of Victorian culture that continue to have a strong and ambivalent legacy, from the fast and wide circulation of wood engravings to the visualisation of gendered and imperialist texts. It proposes a widely applicable theoretical framework for the study of mass print culture and word-image relations. Front matter Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Contents List of Figures Acknowledgements Introduction: Approaching engravings: medium and the parasite A wordless memoir: the illustrator as archivist Part I The Dalziel family and their ‘woodpecker’ employees, 1839–93 ‘The print of [her] feet’ (Wordsworth): the wood engravers’ self-portrait Ruskin’s sinisterity: disjointed hands and brains, and the division of art labour Barnaby Rudge and ‘the atmosphere of letters’ (Craik): apprenticeship, education and employment Ghostwriting the line of the other: Wilkie Collins’s After Dark and Dalziel’s freelance engravers ‘This midnight forger’ (Trollope): signatures, authorship and relations between engravers and draughtspeople Part II Medium and technique at Dalziel Brothers ‘Off with her head!’ (Carroll): execution, technical violence and the discipline of visual culture ‘These many ingenious adaptations of photography’ (Dalziel): photography and wood engraving, from Eadweard Muybridge to Julia Margaret Cameron ‘A peculiar brilliancy of black’ (DeVinne): the colour of monochrome, and Thomas Dalziel’s The May Queen Speed, print, news Conclusion: Greedy rats Bibliography Index of names The wood engravers'self-portrait tells the story of the image-making firm Dalziel Brothers, investigating and interpreting a unique archive from the British Museum. The study takes a creative-critical approach to illustration, alongside detailed investigation of print techniques and history. Five siblings ran the wood engraving firm Dalziel Brothers: George, Edward, Margaret, John and Thomas Dalziel. Prospering through five decades of work, Dalziel became the major capitalist image makers of Victorian Britain. This book, based on AHRC-funded research, outlines the achievements of these remarkable siblings and uncovers the histories of some of the 36 unknown artisan employees that worked alongside them. Dalziel Brothers made works of global importance: illustrations to Lewis Carroll's Alice books, novels by Charles Dickens, and landmark Pre-Raphaelite prints, as well as other, brilliant works that are published here for the first time since their initial creation. The first major study of Dalziel Brothers, a Victorian image-making firm that made a phenomenal contribution to mass visual culture. -- .