Dores London - Hardcover

4.37

156 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0785824286 ISBN 13: 9780785824282

Publisher: Chartwell Books, 2008

This collector's edition contains all 180 stunning images that artist Gustave Dore created when asked to undertake a portrait of London. The hardcover volume is 9.5 in x 11.8, and its beautiful page decorations and the text laid alongside the images creates a unique reading experience for lovers of literature, London, and illustration alike.

The book is broken into four sections: Riches, Rags, Work, and Play. Each of these sections features literature from a contemporary great. The "Riches" section features The Eustance Diamonds by Anthony Trollope, The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, and The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. "Rags" features Sketches by Boz by Charles Dickens, The Mysteries of London by G.M.W. Reynolds, and Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens.

The "Work" section features The Little World of London by Charles Manby Smith, London: A Pilgrimage by Blanchard Jerrold, and London Labour and the London Poor by Henry Mayhew. Finally, "Play" features The Princess Casamassima by Henry James, Pendennis by W.M. Thackeray and Twice Around the Clock by G.A. Sala.

This handsome volume truly is a necessary addition to any reader's library, and manages to put in context nearly all of London during this period of massive change and dramatic class differences. It makes a wonderful gift for anyone who values history and classic literature.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

From the Back Cover:

London in the middle of the 1800s was a subject sketched endlessly by artists, studied by social reformers, and discussed by writers. This comprehensive collection of drawings by Gustave Dor�, France's most celebrated graphic artist of the period, presents all 180 drawings from the artist's 1872 classic presentation, London, A Pilgrimage.
A panoramic portrait of that engrossing city, the collection ranges from images of fashionable ladies riding in a sunlit park to ragged wretches in a shadowy side street. Here are remarkably perceptive sketches of workaday London, busy marketplaces, the Christy Minstrels, a waterman's family, thieves gambling, the Devils' Acre in Westminster, flower girls, waifs and strays, a wedding at the Abbey, provincials in search of lodgings, a garden party, prisoners in the Newgate exercise yard (a scene that so greatly impressed Vincent van Gogh that he copied it in a painting), stalls at Covent Garden Opera House, and many other scenes that capture London of bygone era.
Taken from a volume that is widely regarded as the illustrator's greatest single work, the drawings in this collection will delight Dor� admirers and anyone fascinated by the many aspects of Victorian London.
Dover (2004) original publication.

About the Author:

French illustrator Gustave Dor� (1833-83) began his prolific career at the age of 15, and his dramatic engravings have exercised an incalculable influence over latter-day artists. The remarkable scope of his work ranges from Milton, Dante, and the Bible to Rabelais, Shakespeare, and street scenes of 19th-century London.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.