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Request to view at the Prints & Drawings Study Room, level E , Case I, Shelf 190, Box A

Book Illustration

1860-1862 (designed)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Album, hard-backed and wrapped in a brown paper cover, with eighty-one leaves each of which is decorated with a rectangular gilded border into which proofs of wood-engravings of ornamental alphabets, head and tail pieces and vignettes are pasted. On the inside of the front cover is pasted a photograph probably of W.Harry Rogers.


Object details

Categories
Object type
Materials and techniques
Wood engraving on laid paper pasted onto wove paper.
Brief description
Album of proofs of designs by W.Harry Rogers.
Physical description
Album, hard-backed and wrapped in a brown paper cover, with eighty-one leaves each of which is decorated with a rectangular gilded border into which proofs of wood-engravings of ornamental alphabets, head and tail pieces and vignettes are pasted. On the inside of the front cover is pasted a photograph probably of W.Harry Rogers.
Dimensions
  • Height: 23cm
  • Width: 17cm
Marks and inscriptions
  • 'No.8. - / Mounted proofs of / Ornamental Alphabets . / Head and Tail pieces . / Vignettes - designed & drawn on wood by the late -W.Harry Rogers.' (Textual information; On the wrapping paper covering the front of the album.; Handwriting; Ink; Probably in or after 1873)
  • 'No.8. / Mounted proofs of Alphabets / Head & tail pieces & Vignettes / Designed & drawn on wood by the late W.Harry Rogers.' (Textual information; Written upside down on the wrapping paper covering the back of the album.; Handwriting; Ink; Unknown; Probably in or after 1873)
  • 'WmHarry Rogers / from WBone / feb.1860 / Hill Side, Wimbledon, Surrey.' Crossed out. (In the inside of the front cover above and below the photograph.; Handwriting; Ink; February 1860)
  • 'WmHarryRogers / 13 Rathbone Place / London. W. / crossed out. 3 Charles Street / Soho Square / London W.' (On the leaf facing the inside of the front cover.; Handwriting; Ink)
  • 'HooperEq / 188 Strand -' (Inside top of the back cover of the album.; Handwriting; Pencil; Unknown)
Credit line
Purchased with the Assistance of the Friends of the National Libraries
Object history
The inscription 'WmHarry Rogers from W.Bone' 'feb.1860' is probably by W.Bone of W.Bone & Sons the bookbinders. This firm bound the 1870 edition of 'Alpine Flowers' by W. Robinson for which WH Rogers designed the bookcover. The printed design for the book cover is E.693.179-1998 in the WH Rogers Archive. It appears that W.Bone bound this album and gave it to WH Rogers.

Historical significance: These book illustrations are part of the W.Harry Rogers Archive and to quote the information on the archive provided by 'RW' on 6 February 1998 on the registered file 1997/1476:-
'It is extraordinarily rare to have this kind of documentation at this level of production for the middle decades of the 19th century. The fact the (sic) the state of the designs ranges from rough sketches to finished drawings and proofs allows the pieces to document the design process very closely.'
Production
The handwriting on the cover of this album is very similar to that which appears, because of the content of the inscription, to be that of W.Harry Rogers on the book illustration E.957-1998. The handwriting on the cover, however, is unlikely to be that of W.Harry Rogers because it says 'by the late - W.Harry Rogers'. The similarity of the handwritten inscriptions found in the W.Harry Rogers Archive makes their attribution puzzling.
Bibliographic references
  • Engen, Rodney K. 'Dictionary of Victorian Wood Engravers'. Cambridge: Chadwyck-Healey, 1985. 223 p. ISBN 0859641392
  • Houfe, Simon 'The Dictionary of British Book Illustrators and Caricaturists'. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Baron Publishing, Antique Collectors' Club, revised 1981 437 p. ISBN 0902028731
  • Ball, Douglas 'Victorian Publishers' Bindings.' London: The Library Association, 1985. 90 p. and 155 p.
Collection
Accession number
E.851-1998

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Record createdJuly 31, 2000
Record URL
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