Artist of Wonderland: The Life, Political Cartoons, and Illustrations of Tenniel (Victorian Literature and Culture Series) [Hardcover]

Frankie Morris (Author)

Book Description

Series: Victorian Literature and Culture Series | Publication Date: November 23, 2005

Best known today as the illustrator for Lewis Carroll's Alice books, John Tenniel was the Victorian era's chief political cartoonist. This extensively illustrated book is the first to draw almost exclusively on primary sources in family collections, public archives, and other depositories. Frankie Morris examines Tenniel's life and work, producing a book that is not only a definitive resource for scholars and collectors but one that can be easily enjoyed by everyone interested in Victorian life and art, social history, journalism and political cartoons, and illustrated books.

In the first part of the book, Morris looks at Tenniel the man. From his sunny childhood and early enthusiasm for sports, theater, and medievalism to his flirtation with high art and fifty years in the close brotherhood of the London journal Punch, Tenniel is shown to have been the sociable and urbane humorist revealed in his drawings. According to his countrymen Tenniel's work -- and his Punch cartoons in particular -- would embody for future historians the "trend and character" of Victorian thought and life. Morris assesses to what extent that prediction has been fulfilled.

The biography is followed by three parts on Tenniel's work, consisting of thirteen independent essays in which the author examines Tenniel's methods and his earlier book illustrations, the Alice pictures, and the Punch cartoons. She addresses such little-understood subjects as Tenniel's drawings on wood, his relationship with Lewis Carroll, and his controversial Irish cartoons, and inquires into the salient characteristics of his approximately 4,500 drawings for books and journals.

For lovers of Alice, Morris offers six chapters on Tenniel's work for Carroll. These reveal demonstrable links with Christmas pantomimes, Punch and Judy shows, nursery toys, magic lanterns, nineteenth-century grotesques, Gothic revivalism, and social caricatures.

In five probing studies, Morris demonstrates how Tenniel's cartoons depicted the key political questions of his day--the Eastern Question, which brought into opposition the great rivals Gladstone and Disraeli; trade-union issues and franchise reform; Irish resistance to British rule; and Lincoln and the American Civil War -- examining their assumptions, devices, and evolving strategies. An appendix identifies some 1,500 unmonogrammed drawings done by Tenniel in his first twelve years on Punch.

The definitive study of both the man and the work, Artist of Wonderland gives an unprecedented view of the cartoonist whose adroit adaptations of elements from literature, art, and above all the stage succeeded in mythologizing the world for generations of Britons.

Not for sale in the British Commonwealth except Canada

Available in the British Commonwealth, excluding Canada, from Lutterworth Press

Editorial Reviews

Review

Morris has almost certainly looked at every bit of art (extant and available) that Tenniel produced. Many of the theses advanced along the way are fresh and in some cases unprecedented.... The book can claim to be the standard work on Tenniel.

(Richard Maxwell, Yale University, editor of The Victorian Illustrated Book )

About the Author

The art historian and artist Frankie Morris is the author of numerous articles on the work of John Tenniel.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: University of Virginia Press (November 23, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813923433
• ISBN-13: 978-0813923437
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 7.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,926,536 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Text and Pictures, Classics Both, March 17, 2006

By 

R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Artist of Wonderland: The Life, Political Cartoons, and Illustrations of Tenniel (Victorian Literature and Culture Series) (Hardcover)

One cannot think of classic children's literature without including Lewis Carroll's Alice books, and one cannot think of Alice without the splendid illustrations of Sir John Tenniel. Indeed, the images of the little girl confronting monsters, mad characters, and suspensions of logic are familiar even to those who have not read the books (or had the books read to them). Tenniel's Alice illustrations are his masterwork, but there was much more to him, revealed in _Artist of Wonderland: The Life, Political Cartoons, and Illustrations of Tenniel_ (University of Virginia Press) by art historian Frankie Morris. For over a half a century Tenniel was a staffer at the magazine _Punch_, producing miscellaneous drawings, fanciful initial letters, headings, and more, eventually graduating to the big weekly cartoon which was a staple of the magazine. At his passing in 1914, it was recognized that he would be best remembered by his Alice illustrations, but he would not have been pleased that what he thought of as a secondary career of book illustration should have eclipsed his political cartoons. In her book, Morris corrects the balance, giving Tenniel's biography, then spending six chapters on aspects of the Alice illustrations and five more on the _Punch_ cartoons. Her book is big and handsome, and has plenty of example illustrations.

Tenniel was invited to _Punch_ by its first editor in 1850. At that time, the magazine had been in existence only nine years, but had already become a mainstay in presenting the conservative, middle to upper class views of Victorian England. It was not long before Tenniel moved up from doing small pictures to doing a title page, and eventually to the full page weekly cartoon that was to make him famous. At a Wednesday staff dinner, the subject and treatment of the cartoon would be discussed, and Tenniel would take the ideas and make them his; Morris shows how he simplified and intensified one image after another. It was often turned into a banner for different causes, handed around for group comment, pasted onto kiosks, or copied in other papers internationally. Lewis Carroll asked for Tenniel to do the illustrations for the first Alice book in 1863. Carroll was a fan of _Punch_ and the drawings therein. It was a nearly perfect partnership of author and illustrator. They were of the same class, both frank and honest, both lovers of the theater, Shakespeare, toys, and pantomimes, and especially they delighted in children. Morris's interpretation of the pictures will be of interest to anyone who loves the Alice books. For instance, there is much about how important pantomimes were to both Carroll and Tenniel. Carroll loved the holiday entertainments, as part of his affection for his child friends, and Tenniel called upon stage representations of pantomime characters to interact with Alice. There were, for instance, chess games in some pantomimes with human pieces; many of the chessmen Tenniel depicts are not chessmen at all, but are people dressed up in chessmen costumes. The same could be said of his Humpty Dumpty, or the leg of mutton to whom Alice is introduced.

Morris shows that Tenniel's political cartoons are important guides to British thought and sentiment of their times, and they have been frequently reproduced to illustrate history books. There are many that she shows here, and each has an explanation to put it into historical context; we require that, because they are from a strange and distant land and time. It is not so with the Alice illustrations, which come from a strange and distant fantasy source, but whose realistic representation of a bizarre world is beyond explanation. In this they are timeless classics. Any Alice fan will enjoy this good-looking volume, which is sure to become a main reference to Tenniel's life and art.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars life, work, and times of 19th century English artist John Tenniel, January 5, 2006

By 

Henry Berry "Henry Berry" (Southport, CT) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Artist of Wonderland: The Life, Political Cartoons, and Illustrations of Tenniel (Victorian Literature and Culture Series) (Hardcover)

The illustrated biography of one of England's major 19th-century illustrators has about 180 of Tenniel's illustrations along with 30-40 other related ones. This outstanding, comprehensive, definitive work covers both Tenniel's biography and his artistic career. The career focuses on the two major factors of Tenniel's classic illustrations for various editions of "Alice in Wonderland" and his political and social cartoons appearing in "Punch" magazine for decades. The illustrator's style, caricature, and perspective are discussed in relation to political and social events and issues of the time, including Tenniel being caught up in the social controversy and legal proceedings surrounding "Punch" articles allegedly denigrating the Irish and Tenniel's related illustrations often picturing Irish men with simian-like or other animal-like features. But for the most part, Tenniel was a popular and successful artist because he portrayed with unmatched, unfailing skill and ingenuity England's image of itself as the world's leading colonial and commercial power with an enviable domestic political system. This included critical cartoons of some of England's policies and practices and leading politicians which were a part of the modern-day English political and media tradition. Tenniel's position among the handful of England's top illustrators is secure, and does not have to be supported by argument or claims. The art historian and Tenniel authority Morris mainly fills in the ground for Tenniel's acknowledged pedestal. For collectors, besides the numerous illustrations in the text tracing Tenniel's career and exemplifying his imagination and versatility, there is an appendix "A Guide to Tenniel's Unidentified Punch Work."