Page 79 - Gullivers

of the pencil’, and it could be speculated that an affinity of mind between author and illustrator may be explained when we learn that Grandville died insane in 1847.
In the 1865 edition, illustrated by
T. Morten, the political overtones in the story are referenced in ‘explanatory notes and a life of the author by John Francis Waller, LL.D.’. Morten, whose illustrations for most of the leading journals of his time were well-known, was a good match for this edition of Swift’s work; he emphasises the political satire at play in some of
the scenes, particularly in the life of Dean Swift, also illustrated, which prefaces the travels, and in Gulliver’s discourse with
his Houyhnhnm master; they are
credited by Houfe as Morten’s finest illustrations. Morten’s incisive drawings and Christ Riddell’s cartoonish interpretation published over 100 years later are probably the most overtly political images to accompany Swift’s words, both artists showing their paces
as leading political satirists.
Morten’s crowd scenes are very detailed, and some sly touches are only appreciated on very close looking. His Lilliputian world has a European flavour, medieval at times with its crooked
buildings and heavily armoured knights, and the court of Lilliput suggests seventeenth-century Spain, elaborate and courtly, providing Morten with ample opportunity to show fine details. When Gulliver recounts that the Lilliputians ‘made an exact inventory
of everything they saw’, we see that as well as recording everything in writing (just as Morten shows this scene in great visual detail), they also painted
a portrait of their enormous visitor, and in the bottom left of the illustration a little figure appears under the
hood of a camera pointing at Gulliver. Unlike Grandville, Morten has preferred to concentrate on illustrating the Houyhnhnms, giving much less emphasis to the Yahoos, perhaps not surprising
in an edition that has been bowdlerised.
Other distinguished artists of the later nineteenth century who illustrated Gulliver’s Travels included Gordon Browne, son of Hablôt K. Browne,‘Phiz’, best- known for his illustrations of Dickens’s books. Browne, a prolific illustrator and regarded by critics as a better artist than his father, worked on many classic stories, The Boys’ Own Paper and The Girls’ Own Paper, boys’ adventure stories and some
J.J. Grandville
IV. Picturing Gulliver
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