SHOULD NOVELS BE ILLUSTRATED?

Otago Witness, Issue 3860, 6 March 1928, Page 74

SHOULD NOVELS BE ILLUSTRATED?

By

Frank Rutter.

Is there going to be a revival of the illustrated novel ? This possibility is suggested by a “ best seller ” of to-day. The attractiveness of “ Gentlemen Prefer Blondes ” has been enhanced undoubtedly by the clever illustrations of Mr Ralph Barton, who has convincingly portrayed the outward appearance of the notorious blonde whose mentality Anita Loos so •wittily revealed. There is all the difference in the world between good illustration and great illustration, and the latter, perhaps, has more to do with psychology than art. For the great illustrator is he whose rendering of the outer man exactly corresponds to and fits the description of the inner man given by the author. A supreme example of great, illustration is “ The Last Supper/’ in which Leonardo da Vinci fixed for all succeeding generations the types of the apostles.

There have been many good illustrated editions of Shakespeare, but there has been no great illustrator of Shakespeare; because no artist as yet has succeeded in stamping on the popular imagination his idea of the personalities of Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, dr Falstaff to the exclusion of all others. On the other hand, if when we think of “ Alice in Wonderland ” generally we think of Lewis Cartoll, when we think particularly of Alice or the Duchess or the Mad - Hatter, it is impossible for us to visualise them except as they were drawn by 1 Tenniel. So completely do his conceptions dominate our imaginations that, should a modern artist illustrate this classic, however gifted and accomplished be may be. we are inclined to resent his intrusion as a sacrilege. Great illustration, like that of Tenniel, is final.

It is the same with Dickens. No living artist, however supremely gifted, could ever hope now to oust from the imagination of the world the classic figures created by “Phiz.” and Cruikshank. Dickens was extraordinarily fortunate with his illustrators. It will be remembered that “ The Pickwick Papeis ” were begun as matter to be “ written round ” plates by Seymour already purchased bv the publishers. Shortly before the publication of the second number Seymour died, and then from a host of candidates—among whom was Thackeray—Hablo* Knight Browne (“ Phiz ”) was selected by Dickens himself to be his illustrator. So began a long and intimate association between author and illustrator, and though captious critics from time to time accuse either or both of being too prone to caricature—one writer has recently suggested it .was “ Phiz ” who created the impression that Dickens’s characters were caricatures—the fact remains that readers have taken both to their '.earts and will not change them. We can only visualise Pickwick and the Wellers, “ Mr Dick,” Micawber, and Uriah Heep -s ** Phiz ” drew them, and we are so well Content with his conceptions that we

positively refuse to see them in any other way.

While “ Phiz ” was still illustrating Pickwick, Dickens set George Cruikshank to work illustrating “ Oliver Twist,” and again the work was final, for we cannot and do not want to visualise Bill Sikes and Nancy, Bumble and Fagin, otherwise than as Cruikshank set them before us. Many of us have happy childhood memories associated with Cruikshank’s drawings for Grimm’s “ Popular Stories,” and we remember also this artist’s illustrations for Harrison Ainsworth’s novels; but nothing Cruikshank did secured so tight ar.d lasting a hold on the popular imagination as his interpretations of the characters in “ Oliver Twist.”

It is a tribute to the supremacy of Dickens that it is entirely from him that an idea has arisen that the English novel was originally illustrated. This is quite a misapprehension. Great illustration was as exceptional in the past as it is in the present. The novels of Smollett, Fielding, Richardson, and Jane Austen are not associated with the work of any particular illustrator any more than are the novels of Meredith and Hardy. Subsequent illustrated editions of classics hardly count, for it Would appear that illustration must be contemporary to be definite and final. Thackeray, of course, was a draughtsman as well as a writer, but his illustrations were inferior in pungency to those of “ Phiz ” ar.d Cruikshank, so that our conceptions of his characters are due to the writer rather than to the illustrator.

Though diaries Keene gave vitality to Jerrold’s “Curtain Lectures,” and John Leech to a Beckett’s “ Comic History of England,” both these artists are remembered as contributors to Punch rather than as book illustrators. Among the earl' >r illustrators of sporting books the giant was Rowlandson, and it has surely been his pictorial genius that has given classic rank to the “ Tours of Dr Syntax.”

The invention of photography and the perfection of colour-reproduction have given a new direction to illustration. Illustrated books are not less popular than they were, but they tend to deal with travel or biography rather than fiction. To increase the cost of production of a novel by having it illustrated appears to most publishers—in the 'anguage of the United States—as “ a not worth-while proposition.” Careless illustration is certainly no embellishment, and some time ogo I observed that the frontispiece to a historical novel “ featured ” the fifteenth-century heroine in a modern “jumper” and skirt! The artis. had evidently not read enough of the text to ascertain the period. Colour reproduction has ■’ended to produce “ picture books ” —such as the works of Mr Rackham and Mr Dulac, and the late r. Cayley Robinson’s beautiful interpretation of Maeterlinck’s “ Blue Bird ” —instead of the intimate illustration in which there was close co-operation betwee. artist and author. A “ best seller ” of the recent past which had illustrations was Jerome’s “Three Men in a Boat,” and though it may be doubted whether Mr A. Frederics succeeded in stamping his conception of George and’Harris on the wcrl-ihe certainly gave us an unforgettable image of the dog Montmorency.

Of happy and ideal co-operation between author and artist there is no better example to-day tlian the long partnership of W. W. Jacobs and Will Owen, whose humorously characterised drawings so exactly fit our conceptions of the novelist’s creations. It can hardly be denied that our familiarity with the persons of “Sherlock Holmes” ard “ Captain Kettle ” is very largely due to the original illustrators of these op :- lar storm by Conan Doyle aid (’-tcliffe Hyne. All that a later illustrator can do is humbly to follow in the footsteps of his predecessors, for these types have been fixed, and no departure from them will be permitted—except in America, where in recent years “ Sherlock ” has been presented in a dozen different guises. Whether the coloured paper jackets which ■ ow. adorn novels on the bookstalls can be taken as an encoura<rin <r sign is doubtful. Personally I feel That they point less to a revival of illustration than to the firm conviction of publishers that what really matters—as regards sales—is the outside and not the inside of a book. Many of us who enjov Mr G. K. Chesterton’s drawirgs as much as we do his writings have noted with regret that the illustrations which originally appeared in “The Club of Queer Trades” have vanished from the cheap edition, thoiigh one has survived as a decoration for the paper wrap’.er. John o’ London’s Weekly.

Fairleigh Alexander Marriner, aged 24. a carpenter, of Dunedin, pleaded guilty in the Magistrate’s Court, Wellington to unlawfully supplying to a woman noxious pills and medicine for a certain purpose. He was committed to the Supreme Court for sentence, bail in £lOO and one surety of £lOO being allowed.