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 Doré, 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 Doré admirers and anyone fascinated by the many aspects of Victorian London.
Dover (2004) original publication.