Book Description

This new collection of the letters that Lewis Carroll wrote to the illustrators and prospective illustrators of his books affords fresh insights into Carroll's complex character, traces the history of the books that became great classics of the Victorian era, and charts the sometimes tempestuous seas of Carroll's relationships with his correspondents. Carroll, a meticulous artist, made detailed demands upon his illustrators, who included John Tenniel, Henry Holiday, Arthur Burdett Frost, Harry Furniss, and Gertrude Thomson.Lewis Carroll and His Illustrators reveals the author as an expert in the details of book production in an age in which new technologies repeatedly altered the publishing process. Morton N. Cohen and Edward Wakeling's general introduction to the volume looks at Lewis Carroll the man and touches on his place in Victorian publishing. Each group of letters is preceded by an introduction that includes a brief biography of the artist and a summary of his or her collaboration with Carroll. Many of the letters include Carroll's own sketches as aids to his collaborators. Comparison of these sketches with the artists' final drawings, also included, shed light on the genesis of the illustrations. Some letters from the illustrators to Carroll, also printed here, add greater insight into the process.