Ohio University Press The The Illustrated Letters of Richard Doyle to His Father, 1842–1843 (Series in Victorian Studies)

"Scott's collection of illustrated letters from the hand of Richard Doyle, the fascinating but neglected contributor to Punch magazine, are a goldmine. Accompanied by an excellent editorial apparatus, the letters provide a revealing glimpse into the lives of a Victorian family steeped in the arts in the early 1840s." —Bernard Lightman, York UniversityBefore he joined the staff of Punch and designed its iconic front cover, illustrator Richard "Dicky" Doyle was a young man whose father (political caricaturist John Doyle) charged him with sending a weekly letter, even though they lived under the same roof. This volume collects the fifty-three illustrated missives in their entirety for the first time and provides an uncommon peek into the intimate but expansive observations of a precocious social commentator and artist. In a series of vivid manuscript canvases, Doyle observes Victorian customs and society. He visits operas, plays, and parades. He watches the queen visiting the House of Commons and witnesses the state funeral of the Duke of Sussex. He is caught up in the Chartist riots of August 1842 and is robbed during one of the melees. And he provides countless illustrations of ordinary people strolling in the streets and swarming the parks and picture galleries of the metropolis. The sketches offer a fresh perspective on major social and cultural events of London during the early 1840s by a keen observer not yet twenty years old. Doyle's epistles anticipate the modern comic strip and the graphic novel, especially in their experimentation with sequential narrative and their ingenious use of space. The letters are accompanied by a full biographical and critical introduction with new material about Doyle's life. Review “In recovering the fascinating illustrated letters that Richard Doyle wrote to his father leading up to the work with Punch, Grant Scott gives us access to both the visual virtuosity and the psychological depth of one of the most brilliant and inventive of Victorian graphic artists.” ―Juliet McMaster, distinguished university professor emerita, University of Alberta “Doyle and his family are enigmas. Grant E. Scott in his meticulous and detailed introduction and notes makes the most of the scant information available. …[They] remain as much of an enigma to me after reading these letters as they were before, though their reproduction here in all their elusive detail, scrupulously annotated by the editor, is both pleasurable and educative.” — The Times Literary Supplement About the Author Grant F. Scott is a professor of English at Muhlenberg College. He is the author of The Sculpted Word: Keats, Ekphrasis, and the Visual Arts, the editor of Selected Letters of John Keats, Joseph Severn: Letters and Memoirs, and with Sue Brown, New Letters of Charles Brown to Joseph Severn.