Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice book in great condition. Pages in excellent unused condition. No notes or highlighting. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> Those children of the eighteenth century fortunate enough to possess books took as keen a delight in the illustrations as do their counterparts of today. Although the vast majority of the artist- craftsmen who designed the illustrations and executed them on wood or copper remain irretrievably anonymous a few can be identified. Because of the acclaim with which his older brother Thomas was greeted for his superlative wood engravings of animals and birds John Bewick’s name was never entirely forgotten. Such was the brilliance of his brother’s skill and reputation how- ever that it has largely obscured recognition of John Bewick’s own life and his consider- able achievements as a wood engraver. Yet John Bewick was one of the earliest if not the earliest designer-engravers in England to make his living almost exclu- sively by illustrating books; and his popular- ity resulted in his contributing illustrations and engravings to no less than sixty titles – mostly children’s books – during a tragically short working life. Nigel Tattersfield’s book is the first to establish John Bewick as an artist-engraver his own right. It draws upon largely unpublished correspondence which has come to light during the last few years John Bewick’s own ledger of commissions dating from 1791 (previously unidentified) and a painstaking investigation of the extensive collection of Bewick material presented to the British Museum by his niece Isabella Bewick in 1883. Fully illustrated with a brief but reveal- ing biography and a comprehensive cata- logue this work represents a significant contribution to the history not only of early children’s books but also of popular art in the late eighteenth century. (SP)