The Victorian Illustrated Book

US: University of Virginia Press, 2002. Hardcover. Very Good/Good. Throughout the nineteenth century, but most intensely in the reign of Queen Victoria, England and Scotland produced an unprecedented range of extraord inary illustrated books. Images in books became a central feature of Victor ian culture. They were at once prestigious and popularâ??a kind of entertai nmentâ??but equally a place for pondering fundamental questions about histo ry, geography, language, time, commerce, design, and vision itself. Concent rating on the use of illustration in literatureâ??especially novels, poems, and children's booksâ??the essays collected in The Victorian Illustrated B ook address a wide chronological and stylistic range of work. They offer fr esh insights into such diverse topics as illustration in the books of Charl es Dickens and William Morris, the use of words as images, the intersection of children's books and shopping, the use of maps in fiction, the decline of illustrated volumes after Queen Victoria's death, and the proposal that Victorian illustration was a major inspiration for modernist and postmodern ist experiments with the form of the book. Contributors:Steven Dillon, Bates CollegeNicholas Frankel, Virginia Commonwealth UniversityCharles Harmon, Loyola UniversityElizabeth Helsinger, University of ChicagoSimon Joyce, Texas Christian UniversityRichard Maxwell, Valparaiso UniversityRobert L. Patten, Rice UniversityJeffrey Skoblow, Southern Illinois University at EdwardsvilleKatie Trumpener, University of ChicagoHerbert Tucker, University of Virginia.