Eminent Victorian Cartoonists Volume III: Heirs and Successors

Abstract

Volume III of Eminent Victorian Cartoonists rounds-out the story of this pivotal era of cartooning by examnining the 'Heirs and Successors' to the Victorian tradition. Edwards Linley Sambourne (1844-1910) broke new ground (through his use of photography) while still continuing the Punch tradition of Leech and Tenniel, week-in-week-out. Sir Francis Carruthers Gould (1844-1925) looked to Leech and Tenniel for his inspiration, but drove the political cartoon in new directions as the twentieth century dawned. Gould was the first of a new breed - a daily cartoonist - that would dominate the modern era of mass-circulation newspapers, and spell the end of the Victorian 'serio-comic' weekly magazine. Succeeded in turn by Sir Barnard Partidge (1861-1945), these geniuses have left a legacy that still shapes our understanding of political cartooning in the twenty-first century. Their life stories not only reveal much about their own times, but about the development of the most enduring form of political art.