Library Receives Rare Vanity Fair Prints Of Victorian Personalities
20, 2002-- A retired University of Virginia
literature scholar has donated to the U.Va. Library nearly 900 rare
caricatures of important figures from Victorian and Edwardian England.
prints were given by professor emeritus Cecil Lang, a leading 19th
century literature expert, to the Albert and Shirley Small Special
Collections Library, and originally appeared in the legendary British
"smart set" magazine, Vanity Fair.
urbane and trend-setting London weekly captured the interest and
imagination of subscribers from 1868 to 1914 with its political,
economic and society news, enhanced by chromolithographic caricatures
of eminent personalities of the times. One of the most successful
of the vast numbers of periodicals in 19th century England,
Vanity Fair has been likened to a combination of todays Harpers
Bazaar, Town and Country and The New Yorker.
the prints are quite amusing and entertaining in themselves, more
importantly they are a valuable collection and important resource
with obvious research potential in Victorian and Edwardian literature
and history, fine arts and the history of printing," said Kathryn
N. Morgan, associate director of the Special Collections Library.
Librarian Karin Wittenborg added: "The Vanity Fair prints
are a significant addition to our rare materials on Victorian literature
and history. Mr. Lang is renowned as a scholar of that period and
it is a particular honor to receive this gift from him."
a U.Va. professor of English from 1967 to 1991 who lives in Charlottesville,
collected the prints as a reference resource of notable Victorians
while he was editing the letters of the British writer Matthew Arnold.
Vanity Fair issue featured a cartoon, or caricature, depicting
a prominent person of lasting -- or fleeting -- fame during the
golden age of the British Empire. Vanity Fairs founding editor,
Thomas Gibson Bowles, referred to the illustrations as "the
unheroic representation of heroes." More than 2,000 of these
caricatures appeared of subjects that included artists, athletes,
royalty, statesmen, scientists, authors, actors, soldiers and scholars.
Among Langs set, for example, are drawings of Winston Churchill,
Robert Browning, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Charles Darwin, Rudyard Kipling
and Queen Victoria.
by an international group of talented artists, the illustrations
are the chief legacy of the magazine and now form a unique and valuable
pictorial record of the period. Among the artists who contributed
illustrations were Sir Max Beerbohm, Sir Leslie Ward (who signed
his work "Spy"), the Italian Carlo Pellegrini (known as
"Ape"), the French artist James Jacques Tissot and the
American Thomas Nast.
prints are now available in the Special Collections Library and
are cataloged in VIRGO, the Librarys online catalog at www.lib.virginia.edu.
Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library houses the
Universitys many outstanding collections of rare books and
manuscripts. The primary focus of these collections is American
history and literature, in particular, the Tracy W. McGregor Library
of American History and the Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American
Literature. Among the treasures to be found in Special Collections
are Thomas Jeffersons papers and his architectural drawings
of the University of Virginia; the Paul Mellon Collection of Americana;
and the largest single collection of William Faulkner editions,
manuscripts and personal papers. To learn more about the resources
found in Special Collections, visit the Web site www.lib.virginia.edu/speccol
or call (434) 924-3025.
Melissa Cox Norris, (434) 924-4254