FIVE CENTURIES OF ENGLISH BOOK ILLUSTRATION

364 pages, colour frontispiece, profusely illustrated throughout in colour and black & white, brown cloth, a very good copy in the dust jacket.

This is the first detailed survey of the past five centuries of book illustration in England. It is divided into two parts. Part One, A Critical Account, is a comprehensive analysis of specific artists, books and illustrations. It covers the anonymous work in books by leading printers before 1600 and then the work of over 200 illustrators up to 1976. Part Two, a Catalogue of Illustrations and Books, lists 2,700 selected entries of English illustrations. In addition the 200 reproductions have been specifically chosen to provide a record of representative illustrations which relate directly to the discussion. In each case, the author gives a general impression of an artist's work, describes the subject matter of their designs, notes their relation to other illustrations, and comments on the most important or representative of their books. Each analysis attempts to reach an estimate of the artist's relative achievement as an interpretive illustrator.