#victorian illustrators

“Most great writers suffer and have no idea how good they are. Most bad writers are very confident. Be willing to be a child and be the Lilliputian in the world of Gulliver, the bat girl in Yankee Stadium. That’s a more fruitful way to be.”
~ Mary Karr
[“Lilliputians Examining the Man‐Mountain’s Possessions,” 1865 illustration by Thomas Morten] 

• Karr’s work has received tremendous praise for its lyricism and beauty. Reviewing the breakthrough memoir, The Liars’ Club, in the New York Times, Michiko Kakutani noted that Karr’s “most powerful tool is her language, which she wields with the virtuosity of both a lyric poet and an earthy, down-home Texan. It’s a skill used… in the service of a wonderfully unsentimental vision that redeems the past even as it recaptures it on paper.” More: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/mary-karr 

• Morten’s best work was unquestionably his monumental version of Gulliver Travels (1865). His illustrations for Swift are both well-drawn and sensitive to textual nuance. According to John F. Sena, these images are ‘extraordinary’ (p.118), especially in their representation of changes in Gulliver’s character as he is transformed from an imperial (and imperious) Englishman into a humble observer of life’s absurdities. Largely neglected, this book is an important work. More: https://victorianweb.org/art/illustration/morten/cooke.html