Description
Book SynopsisA lively and colourful study of the 'Golden Age' of caricature. Detailed interpretations of key prints show how artists, including James Gillray, George and Robert Cruikshank, and Thomas Rowlandson, transformed Romantic-era politics into a unique and compelling spectacle of corruption, monstrosity and resistance.
Trade Review'A compelling account of political caricature in the Romantic period … Ian Haywood's book offers an inventive and hugely informative tour of the genre, making a welcome contribution to a growing field.' The Times Literary Supplement
'… original and well-rounded discussions which build on our current understanding of those subjects …' Richard A. Gaunt, The BARS Review
'… an exciting and comprehensive study … [it] is a strong contribution to Romantic Studies and there is no doubt that this brilliant book will spark more close readings of the many prints held in the British Museum.' Sibylle Erle, Studies in Romanticism
Table of ContentsIntroduction: the recording angel; 1. Milton's monsters. James Gillray, Sin, Death and the Devil (1792); 2. Lethal money: forgery and the Romantic credit crisis. James Gillray, Midas (1797), George Cruikshank and William Hone, Bank Restriction Note (1819); 3. The aesthetics of conspiracy. James Gillray, Exhibition of a Democratic Transparency (1799); 4. The spectral tyrant: Napoleon and the English dance of death. Thomas Rowlandson, The Two Kings of Terror (1813); 5. The spectropolitics of Romantic infidelism. George Cruikshank, The Age of Reason (1819); 6. The British inquisition. George Cruikshank and William Hone, Damnable Association (1821); 7. The return of the repressed: Henry Hunt and the Reform Bill crisis. William Heath/Charles Jameson Grant, Matchless Eloquence (1831).
