The years 1855-80, generally referred to as 'The Sixties', saw some of the finest and most significant contributions to wood-engraved book and magazine illustration in Britain. In this major survey, now available in a revised paperback edition, Paul Goldman has selected 31 artists, including Edward Burne-Jones, John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who have created some of the most important illustrative work of the period. Devoting a chapter to each of the five groups of artists he identifies, from the Pre-Raphaelites to the Idyllic School and the High Victorians, Goldman provides a critical commentary on every artist, followed by a checklist of the books they themselves illustrated or those to which they contributed. More detailed bibliographic information is included in an index of illustrated books arranged by author. This index also gives the locations of copies in public collections in the UK, USA and Australia. The index of magazine illustrations, listed chronologically under each periodical, gives the precise date and position of all the magazine designs mentioned.
This is an authoritative and descriptive reference work for all scholars in the field, and is illustrated with 230 black-and-white illustrations which capture the delicacy and the variety of Victorian illustrative work.