Gustave Dore [Hardcover]

Gustave Dore (Author), Annie Renonciat (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1985

Gustave Dore was the most successful as well as the most prolific French illustrator of the mid 19th century. He created over 10,000 engravings and 4000+ editions in the forty year period from 1860-1900. Dore is best known for his book illustrations for Dante's Inferno, Don Quixote, The Bible and Divine Comedy. In addition to illustration, Dore was also an accomplished oil painter, completing over 400 paintings in his lifetime.

Dore art book contains 180+ Reproductions from The Bible and Dante’s Inferno Series with title.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Art Books Intl Ltd; First Edition edition (January 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0881680184
• ISBN-13: 978-0881680188
• Product Dimensions: 11.9 x 8.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,802,578 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars great, albeit textually imperfect, book, June 28, 2010

By 

Oscar Jaeger (Brooklyn, N.Y. U.S.A.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Gustave Dore (Hardcover)

This book will bring great joy to anyone who loves Gustave Dore's drawings. They are reproduced here with amazing clarity and in eye-pleasing large size. The book's drawbacks are twofold: 1) not enough care was taken to avoid errors in the text that accompanies each drawing and 2) the introduction is puerile. Regarding the first problem, to take one example, one of Dore's illustrations for Charles Perrault's Complete French Fairy Tales, Hop O' My Thumb, is given the following description in the superlative translation of these tales into English by Christopher Betts: "The Ogre pulls the boys out from under the bed." In the book I'm reviewing here the same illustration is accompanied by the following text: "He dragged them one after another from under the bad." That's right, it says "bad," not "bed." As for the second problem, the introduction is so badly written - perhaps I should say it was bedly written, on the assumption that the author was ill and bedridden - that the author has wisely chosen anonymity over fame or, more precisely, over shame. Its deficiencies are obvious, but become especially glaring when compared to the elegant introduction Betts wrote to his outstanding translation. On balance, however, this is a thrilling book that is worth much more than its modest price would suggest. I would also highly recommend the book translated by Betts, The Complete Fairy Tales by Charles Perrault, an Oxford University Press World's Classics publication. This Oxford University Press publication, which is also beautifully illustrated, is a complete, unalloyed joy to read and behold.