Facing the Text. Extra-illustration, print culture, and society in Britain, 1769–1840

Abstract

The art of extra-illustration, whereby printed or handwritten texts were amplified through the addition of drawings, prints, maps and plans, flourished in Britain in the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth. It is surprising, therefore, that little modern scholarly attention has been paid to the practice. This lacuna is rectified in this study by Lucy Peltz, Senior Curator at London’s National Portrait Gallery (itself the home of a handful of important extra-illustrated volumes). Here, Peltz studies the history of extra-illustration, the means by which such volumes were compiled, and the concerns and motivations of the compilers. The result is a fascinating volume, which not only makes a significant contribution to the literature on the collecting of works on paper, but also considers intellectual networks, the print market in Britain, the reception of historical texts in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the experiences of female collectors, whose...