Shadows
London: W. Kent & Co., 1860. Item #06504
Victorian Comic Fantasy in Color
Charles H. Bennett’s Delightful Play of Light and Imagination
BENNETT, Charles H. Bennett. Shadows. London: W. Kent & Co. (late D. Bogue), [1860].
First edition in book form. Octavo (7 3/8 x 5 3/8 inches; 187 x 136 mm.). [8], 232 pp.
With twenty-four full-page hand-colored lithograph plates, including the pictorial title.
Publisher’s color pictorial boards, rebacked with spine strengthened, yellow coated endpapers. An attractive and well-preserved copy of a volume seldom found in the original boards. With the booksellers ticket of R. Ackerman on front paste-down.
A highly imaginative and whimsical work in which Bennett transforms everyday shadows into elaborate comic and fantastical scenes - an inspired exploration of visual illusion that anticipates later developments in caricature and graphic storytelling.
Originally issued in parts, Shadows is among Bennett’s most inventive productions and reflects his close association with the circle of Victorian illustrators contributing to Punch. His work, though cut short by his early death, exerted a quiet but lasting influence on later comic artists.
Charles Henry Bennett (1828-1867), illustrator and caricaturist, was apparently untrained yet was already contributing to the illustrated press by 1855, ultimately working for The Comic Times, Comic News, Illustrated Times, and Punch.
He rose to fame for his illustrations to The Fables of Aesop (1857), and illustrated childrens books, including The Sad History of Greedy Jim and All His Brothers (1858), The Book of Blockheads (1863), and The Sorrowful Ending of Noodledoo (1864). In 1859, Charles Kingsley sponsored him to provide illustrations to an edition of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, the results commanding the respect of a broad literary circle.
Price: $950.00