August 21 marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of well-known British artist Aubrey Beardsley. Three days later, August 24, is the 150th anniversary of the birth of Beardsley’s friend, caricaturist and essayist Max Beerbohm. As young men, both artists shocked English society with their boundary-pushing creativity, becoming celebrities in literary and artistic circles in …
Feb. 10 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Victorian writer Eliza Lynn Linton. Lynn Linton is considered the first female salaried journalist in England. Her writing career was profitable but not without controversy. Elizabeth (Eliza) Lynn was largely self-taught, the youngest child of a widowed clergyman who had free rein to peruse her …
Detective fiction was growing in popularity when London publisher George Newnes decided to launch a new magazine in 1890. The very first issue, dated January 1891, led with the detective story “A Deadly Dilemma” by Canadian author Grant Allen. Over the next six decades, The Strand Magazine would feature a host of fictional sleuths, most …
Renowned Victorian artist Sir John Tenniel was born this day 200 years ago. Tenniel was formally trained as a painter, but after accepting a job as an illustrator at the prominent English humor magazine, Punch, he found fame as a cartoonist and book illustrator. He produced thousands upon thousands of drawings for the magazine, from …
This week marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of British illustrator John Leech (Aug. 29, 1817). As a teenager, Leech studied medicine, but when his father’s business failed, the young man turned to his first love – drawing – to help support his family. Leech’s first success was producing humorous lithographs in the 1830s. …
The library’s newest exhibit, “Comics & Mormons,” features 20th and 21st century examples of comics and graphic novels from Special Collections, but hidden among the rare book collections are older comics from the 19th century. This post features one of the first British comic strips, “Ally Sloper.” The recurring character “Ally Sloper” first appeared in …
Dec. 30 marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of British author Rudyard Kipling, the first English writer to receive the Nobel Prize for literature. Born in India and educated in England, Kipling showed early brilliance as a writer of short fiction. His first works appeared while working as a journalist for English-language newspapers in …
What was the hot-ticket reading material for the holiday season in Britain 150 years ago? The Christmas number of All the Year Round, entitled “Doctor Marigold’s Prescriptions.” It first appeared on Dec. 7, 1865. All the Year Round was a weekly literary journal started by Charles Dickens in 1859. It featured the writing of many …
The HBLL has recently launched the Victoria R.I. Bibliography database, which lists the original bibliographic descriptions for the core of BYU’s Victorian Collection — over 4,000 books, manuscripts and ephemera purchased in 1969 from San Francisco book dealer David Magee. The entries, along with Magee’s descriptive text, can be found at http://lib.byu.edu/collections/victoria-ri-bibliography/about/ or by going …
December’s Victorian Book of the Month is a recent acquisition, Punch’s Snapdragons for Christmas. Published in 1845 by the proprietors of the famed Victorian humor magazine Punch, this book contains lighthearted tales, poems, and illustrations for the season. From satirical “Monetary Hints for the Season” and advice on “How to Provide a Christmas Dinner,” to …