Jane Austen Society of Australia

Austen illustrated
or, Jane Austen had no Phiz

Deb Williams’ consistent scrounging through second-hand bookshops has, since she joined JASA some six years ago, included searches for material illustrating Austen’s novels. She shares some of those illustrations with us...

Words and pictures

Hablot Knight Browne, who took the nickname ‘Phiz’ to complement Charles Dickens’ penname, ‘Boz’, was illustrator to ten of Dickens’ 15 novels and worked with him for over 20 years. Dickens (1812-1870) worked in close collaboration with his illustrators, supplying them with an overall summary of the work at the outset for the cover illustration for each of the monthly parts, and briefing them on plans for each month’s instalment so that work on the illustrations could begin before he wrote them. The works became famous almost as much for the illustrations as for the text, and at times Dickens wrote so that his material accorded with what had already been drawn! Only two of Dickens’ major works, Hard Times and Great Expectations, were issued originally without illustration.

Jane Austen (1775-1817) was publishing too early to have a ‘Phiz’. At that time, commercial reproduction of illustrative prints was done to meet the particular demands of a limited market prepared to pay high prices for aesthetically appealing books. Ackermann’s¹ 3,000-strong editions commonly ran to six to eight guineas per volume, with each aquatint plate coloured by hand – work largely done by children. The first edition of Austen's Sense and Sensibility retailed at 15 shillings per copy². Often books had only an engraved title page and perhaps a portrait frontispiece, which as books were often sold unbound may have served the same purpose as the dustjacket does today. 

The Industrial Revolution and the emerging middle class produced a new public for smaller, cheaper books than the handsome folios published by subscription for the nobility and gentry. Printing processes developed from a handcraft to a technology during the Victorian era, and modern book illustration followed a similar course. 

Reproduction

Originally, in the block books of the 15th century, the text and the illustration were cut on the same wooden block. The woodcut tended to be replaced by copperplate engraving and etching during the 16th and 17th centuries. For the English print-sellers the reproduction by engraving of famous paintings was their primary business and the selling of plates for illustrations merely a sideline. It wasn’t until the close of the 18th century that the art of book illustration was revolutionized by Bewick’s³ ingenious use of wood engraving, and Senefelder’s⁴ invention of lithography. Lithography was versatile and became an increasingly popular process from the 1830s, being used for cheap, mass-produced promotional material as well as expensive, lavishly illustrated albums. By the 1890s and the introduction of photography there was no longer any need for an artist’s work to be reinterpreted by an engraver onto a printing block – the image could be both directly and mechanically transferred to the printing surface, greatly stimulating the production of illustrated books and magazines. In our own times, the digital print revolution has made colour printing so cheap and easy that even daily newspapers carry colour graphics.

One of the most ambitious illustrated books of Austen's period was Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery in 1786 – when Jane was about 11 years old and perhaps just beginning to write. Boydell approached the leading painters of the day, inviting them to paint Shakespearian scenes which could be exhibited in his gallery and afterwards engraved to illustrate a folio edition ‘of the utmost typographical magnificence’. Reynolds, Barry, Romney, and West were all represented. Charles Lamb’s⁵ comment is interesting for showing not only that he disliked the illustrations, but why he disliked them:

What injury did not Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery do me with Shakespeare. To have Opie’s Shakespeare, Northcote’s Shakespeare, light-headed Fuseli’s Shakespeare, wooden-headed West’s Shakespeare, deaf-headed Reynold’s Shakespeare, instead of my own and everybody else’s Shakespeare! To be tied down to an authentic face of Juliet! To have Imogen’s portrait! To confine the illimitable!⁶

If these are your feelings exactly and you do not want to ‘have’ anyone else’s Elizabeth Bennet or Frederick Wentworth, read no further!

Jane and her illustrators

A1	A2	A3
Cassandra Austen's portraits  of English monarchs

James⁷ defines the illustrated book as ‘a partnership between author and artist to which the artist contributes something which is a pictorial comment on the author’s words or an interpretation of his meaning in another medium’. Often the artist is the first outside reader of the text and, in a sense, its first critic. Austen’s first reader and critic was, given their closeness, almost without doubt her older sister, Cassandra – and she was it seems Jane's first illustrator.

Cassandra illustrated Jane’s A History of England by a partial, prejudiced and ignorant historian with portraits of monarchs in circles traced around a half-guinea piece (Figs A1-A3). The work was written when Jane was about 16, so Cassandra must have been about 18 and there are not many of us who would even attempt to do as well. But then for women of Austen’s class the ability to draw was rather like keyboard skills are for us today – almost taken for granted. Pride and Prejudice’s Mr Darcy considered ‘a thorough knowledge of drawing’ essential for a woman to be considered ‘really accomplished’. 

B1	B2
From an 1833 edition of  Emma	By the same artist,  perhaps?

After only moderate success in her lifetime, by the 1820s Austen’s books were out of print; but in 1833 they were re-issued and her following grew from that time. I’ve been able to find only two illustration examples from that period – a frontispiece and a vignette title page from possibly Austen’s earliest professional illustrator, whose name as far as I can decipher is Greatbatch. The illustration at Fig. B1 shows Emma, who had few illusions about her own skills as an artist, taking Harriet’s likeness, with Mr Elton looking on⁸. Sometimes in old illustrations it is the detail that is most interesting – note the chandelier in the dustcover. Was this common in a room used mainly during the day?  Fig. B2, found on the Internet and unattributed, looks similar enough in style to be by the same artist; it shows Catherine and Henry from Northanger Abbey.

I hasten to add that I don’t own any of these early editions – but I have seen one advertised for sale on an antiquarian book website for £600 if you are of a mind to buy it! 

C1	C2
E H Garrett

EH Garrett

Edmund H Garrett (1853-1929) was an American author, illustrator, and bookplate maker as well as a respected painter, particularly well-known for illustrating Arthurian legends. His works hang in the New York Public Library, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Fine Arts, the Boston Public Library, and the Massachusetts State House. Figs C1 and C2 are rather poor quality reproductions (found on the Internet) of his illustrations of Elizabeth and Darcy looking cool and sedate in contrast to the way some other illustrators have presented them.

Hugh Thomson

D1	D2	D3
D4	D5	D6
Hugh Thomson ...more Thomson illustrations

Probably the most famous and most recognised of Austen’s illustrators, Hugh Thomson (1860-1920)  illustrated all six of Austen’s works (e.g. the Macmillian 1890 issues and the 1894 George Allen edition of Pride and Prejudice) and his drawings still appear in modern editions of her novels (e.g. the Chancellor Press collected 1985 & 1987 editions). He was born in Ireland but moved to London in 1883, and his greatest popularity came after 1900. He also illustrated popular works of fiction such as Silas Marner, The Pickwick Papers, Shakespeare, and many of the Highways and Byways series of guidebooks to England’s counties.

Thomson's drawings have been derided as inane dressmaker's dummies⁹ but I think he can capture expressions and gestures perfectly on occasion – the look of distaste on Emma's face in Fig. D1 as she follows Augusta Elton into the ballroom; and the outthrust hip and dangling wrist of a languid Sir Walter in D2. An illustration I particularly like (D3) is his interesting interpretation of a female pastime so admired by Pride and Prejudice’s Mr Bingley. I think it would be a very accomplished young lady who could attractively cover a such a large screen as this.

Perhaps because the Thomson editions are so lavishly illustrated, he shows us not just the pivotal plot moments but frequently gives us very detailed drawings of the most minor characters and incidents from the slightest text references (Figs D4, D5 & D6). Figure D6 is of Sense and Sensibility's Mrs Jennings dosing her late husband with Constantia wine for his colicky gout – a remedy she recommends for Marianne for her disappointed heart.

CE Brock (and his imitators)

E1	E2	E3
CE Brock ...more Brock illustrations		Compact English  Classics

Charles Edmund Brock (1870-1938), the oldest of a quartet of artist brothers, was a very successful illustrator of authors such as Jonathon Swift, William Thackeray, Mrs Gaskell, and George Eliot. He got his first book commission at the age of 20 with next to no formal training. He is best known for his line work, initially somewhat influenced by Thomson (Fig. E1), but he was also a skilled colourist (Fig. E2). The brothers’ studio was filled with chintzes and wall-papers, quaint old mirrors, linen-presses and tallboys, and old china and silver. They had a costume collection and family members would pose for each other so that details could be observed. In his lifetime CE Brock’s work was described as ‘sensitive to the delicate, teacup-and-saucer primness and feminine outlook of the early Victorian novelists’ while ‘equally appreciative of the healthy, boisterous, thoroughly English characters of the Regency Bucks, of serving men, the County folk and the horsey types’¹⁰. Recognise any Austen characters in that description?

The 1986 Compact English Classics ‘abridged and simplified’ edition of Pride and Prejudice is packed with  illustrations by an uncredited artist in the style of Brock – sometimes very much in style of Brock! (Fig. E3)

Lex de Renault

F1	F2	F3
Lex de Renault

The Collins’ Clear-Type Press compendium edition of Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, and Cranford contains some half-dozen vignettes (e.g. Fig. F1) and full-page illustrations  (Figs F2 & F3) by Lex de Renault to Pride and Prejudice. The volume is undated, but was possibly published as early as the first decade of the 20th century when Collins was developing its ‘books for the millions’ – cheap editions of classical literature. The book’s introduction, by John R Crossland, promises ‘in this age of exotic and neurotic fiction’ to provide ‘a pleasant backwater in which the reader may lie at ease and recapture at leisure the scent of lavender, the elegance of manners, and the human drama of passionate devotion in an age now past’. Of de Renault I could find nothing. His/her illustrations in this volume, which seem to be watercolours, are quite dramatic (even melodramatic), and though the interior details are well depicted, the draftsmanship of the figures is sometimes lacking. Fig. F2 depicts a lovely old inn complete with settle in front of the fireplace, while by comparison Fig. F3 shows probably the most awkward and least attractive Darcy I have ever seen represented!

Joan Hassall

G

Joan Hassall  ...more Hassall illustrations

Joan Hassall (1906 to 1988), the daughter of a successful Edwardian poster artist, began wood engraving in 1931. Her work ranged from book illustrations to the invitation card for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. It was while studying at the Royal Academy Schools that she saw the work of Bewick and continued to study the work not of her contemporaries but of 19th century engravers, whose influence on her own work recommended her particularly as illustrator for editions of Gaskell’s Cranford (1940), Mitford’s Our Village (1947), and the Folio Society’s editions of Austen published between 1957 and 1975. Chambers says of the complicated groupings in the Austen illustrations that the ‘people who fill them are skilfully disposed, portraying as faithfully as did Jane Austen the movement or repose of the characters in the novels.’¹¹

Hassall’s engravings are very detailed and often capture the drama of the moment, but are not among my favourites – the woodcuts sometimes have a very gloomy feel. She certainly can portray candlelight, though! Shown here from Mansfield Park (Fig. G) are Tom Bertram and a reluctant Fanny Price interrupted in their Lovers’ Vows scene by the news of Sir Thomas’ arrival. Note how the faces of Tom and Fanny are depicted as underlit by the candles in the footlights, and how reflected light silhouettes the other characters.

20th century influences

H	I
Collins Library of Classics	Rhys Williams

Not surprisingly, contemporary sensibilities influence the illustrations, particularly when it comes to fashions and hairstyles.

Fig. H is an uncredited plate from an undated (though judging by feel of the illustration probably 1930s) Collins Library of Classics edition of Sense and Sensibility, showing a very sophisticated-looking Marianne about to be snubbed by Willoughby at the party. Perhaps this was a stock illustration put to use here because it doesn’t convey any of the intensity of the moment. Marianne looks merely interested, Willoughby merely uninterested. They could be talking politics! Lots of white satin though – Emma’s Mrs Elton (and Jean Harlow) would have approved.

Fig. I is a Rhys Williams drawing of the proposal scene from a 1949 Kingston Classics edition of Pride and Prejudice. To the left of the fireplace is the sort of screen that I imagine Bingley was actually referring to, which would be covered with decoupage, perhaps, or needlework of some kind. I love this illustration for its oh-so-elegant Elizabeth with her Gene Tierney hairstyle, and because it looks as though Darcy is palely, angrily, actually levitating from the footstool!

J1	J2
John Austen

A 1948 Avalon Press edition of Persuasion is illustrated by a John Austen (1886-1948) – no relation, as far as I can discover, though one website credits him with writing Persuasion as well as illustrating it!  This book contains both line-drawn chapter headpieces and coloured plates, the latter interesting for their coloured-pencil/wash shading (Fig. J1). (And there’s that fire screen again!) This drawing is entitled ‘Elliots: A Proud Trio’ but as the endpapers (Fig. J2) show, all the characters depicted in the book have that same purse-lipped, heavy-lidded, superior look – described by Pepin & Micklethwait as ‘mannered, though still elegant’. John Austen, who was born in Kent (which might well show him to be from the richer side of the Austen family), moved to London in 1906 and became what his biographer described as ‘a long-haired studio exquisite’¹².

K1	K2
Beryl Sanders

Figs K1 and K2 are illustrations from Scenes from Emma by Jane Austen (1997) from Museum Quilts Publications’ odd A Little Brown Notebook series. The book is just that – text and cover printed on brown paper with a quote and a small illustration amid much white (or rather, brown) space per opening. The sketches, by Beryl Sanders, are lively and amusing. I can almost hear Frank whistling in feigned innocence in Fig. K1, and the tension between Emma and Mr Elton in the carriage in Fig. K2 is palpable. The covers of this book tie closed with narrow black ribbon – a nice touch – but I could never bring myself to write in it!

Juvenilia Press

L1	L2	L3
Juvenilia Press

The most extensively illustrated recent editions of Austen’s work have come from the Juvenilia Press, which is dedicated to publishing the childhood works of famous authors. These illustrations of Austen’s early writings are mostly line drawings done by students of the Press founding editor, Juliet McMaster, and vary greatly in style (Figs L1 & L2). The delicate watercolours in The Beautifull Cassandra by Juliet McMaster herself (Fig. L3), are my favourites. By making the Cassandra of the story a mouse, she has given us a Beatrix Potter ‘take’ on this work by the young Austen.

Finally

The artist Reginald Birch (1856-1943) claimed that his career was almost wrecked because of the critical odium attached to the children’s book he illustrated, Little Lord Fauntleroy. 

The book was a real success at the time of its publication but, contrary to expectations, more popular with mothers than children. It earned its illustrator the undying hatred of several generations of small boys as their fond mamas, emulating his depiction of the ‘manly’ young hero of the story, dressed their sons in velvet suits with large lace collars, and coaxed their hair into lovely long ringlets.

I don’t think Austen’s illustrators need have any such fears for their careers.

Deb Williams

Illustration top left: A watercolour by Cassandra Austen of Fanny Knight painting in watercolour. Fanny was the eldest daughter of Jane Austen's brother, Edward.

1. Rudolph Ackermann (1764-1834), Repository of Arts publisher of books on fashion, topography, sport, etc.
2. 'The Professional Woman Writer', Jan Fergus, Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen,1997, CUP, Cambridge. 
3. Thomas Bewick (1753-1828), designer, illustrator and engraver, may fairly claim to be the father of modern English book illustration. Before Bewick's time a woodcut was carved with a knife on the plank side of the wood, the method of the German masters. Bewick worked with a graver on the end of the wood rather than the plank side, obtaining effects of depth and tone comparable with copper engraving. From his death until the introduction of photo engraving in 1880, wood engraving was used for most book and periodical illustrations in England. Woodcuts by Thomas Bewick and his School, 1990, Dover, New York.
4. Alois Senefelder (1771-1834), invented lithography or ‘writing on stone’ at the end of the eighteenth century but didn’t publish his methods till 1818.
5. Charles Lamb (1775-1834), English critic & essayist.
6. The Illustration of Books, D Bland, 1962, Faber & Faber, London, p.63.
7. English Book Illustration 1800-1900, P James, 1947, Penguin, London.
8. Illustrations reproduced in Jane Austen, B Wilks, 1978, Hamlyn, London. 
   Claudia L Johnson writing in 'Austen Cults and Cultures", The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen (1997), says that Austen's novels have been available separately since 1832 in the Standard Novels series published by Richard Bentley and reprinted at various times over the next few decades until his copyrights expired, when he was joined by other printers. The novels weren't best-sellers though and Austen remained an artist admired intensely by few until interest was spurred by JE Austen-Leigh's A Memoir of Jane Austen (1870) and Bentley's deluxe Steventon Edition of Jane Austen's Work in 1882. 
9. "Janeitism boomed with the wider publication of Austen's novels singly and in sets, ranging from Routledge's cheap isssues of 1883, and the Sixpenny Novel series starting in 1886; to Macmillan's 1890 issues lavishly if inanely [my emphasis] illustrated by Hugh Thomson; to the quasi scholarly ten-volume set of R Brimley Johnson for Dent in 1892, reissued five times in as many years." Claudia L Johnson, 'Austen Cults and Cultures", The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen, 1997, CUP, Cambridge. 
   "I dislike illustrated editions, too. Hugh Thomson's drawing with their soft Edwardian version of the Regency World, must have done [Austen's] reputation more harm than good over the years. "Girlie Books", a bookseller called her novels to me the other day. I wonder if he was put off by Thomson's dressmaker's dummies...", Claire Tomalin quoted in The Good Book Guide Magazine, Issue 107, 1997.
10. The Art of the Illustrator: CE Brock & His Work, P Bradshaw, nd (pre-1938).
11. Joan Hassall: Engravings & Drawings, D Chambers, 1985, Private Libraries Association, Pinner, Middlesex, UK
12. D Richardson quoted in Dictionary of British Book Illustrators: The Twentieth Century, B Peppin & L Micklethwait, 1983, John Murray, London.

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11 September 2004

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