“Lynd Ward was way ahead of his time, a visionary, in understanding the importance of the book as an object, as a container of a kind of content. His books were made with great attention to that container and he worked within it as precisely as a concrete poet works with language.” — Art Spiegelman The so-called graphic novel -- which may be no more than a successful rebranding of comics -- ... [more]

Randolph Caldecott was born in March of 1846 in a city called Chester, England. He left school at the tender age of fifteen and went to work in a bank branch. In 1861 he saw published his first drawing – and despite the fact that he was to be most remembered for his humorous depictions and lively countryside scenes, Caldecott's first published work would be of a catastrophic fire at the Queens ... [more]

The Battle of the Fruit and Vegetable Soldiers by Francis Darwin (image via Open Culture Charles Darwin is famously known as the father of evolution, but did you realize he was also the devoted father of ten children? This seems like a colossal number today (the Duggars and their like aside), but a large family wasn't uncommon in Darwin's time. It was also not unusual during this period to find a... [more]

The appeal of natural history books and prints is twofold, as they are both of scientific and artistic interest. They present a snapshot in time of scientific understanding of the natural world and the meticulous, often boldly colored illustrations are spectacular. The video below provides a glimpse into the American Museum of Natural History's rare book collection. It was produced as a promotiona... [more]

Andalouse This past Tuesday, our friend L.D. Mitchell at The Private Library, discussed Hand-Colored Plates, paying particular attention to the assembly-line process required to manually color engravings or lithographs. The workers were, more often than not, anonymous women or children. The designers and engraver/lithographers did not color the plates themselves. But these anonymous colorists wer... [more]