The
partnership of William Bradbury and Frederick Mullett Evans was well known. The
ODNB articles on William Bradbury and Frederick
Mullett Evans give
plenty of detail about their life and business activities, their ownership of
the magazine Punch, and their
relationship with Charles Dickens.
The aim
of this blog is to give further details about the books (normally publisher/ edition
bindings) that Bradbury, Evans published and printed in the mid-Victorian
period. Images for the books cited in this blog are available at a Pinterest board on Bradbury and Evans . My research has been
to provide descriptions of the decorative covers of many Victorian books. An
incidental benefit if this work is the recording the publishers of books
with decorated covers (publishers bindings). This means that you, the searcher, can assemble a list
of books by any publisher (or printer) of many UK nineteenth century books, if
you go and search in the British Library Database of Bookbindings; or to British Museum Collections search.
One of
the interesting features is the relationship between Bradbury and John Leighton. By the mid-1850s, Leighton was greatly in demand to make designs
for book covers. Leighton
created hundreds of these, and Bradbury had a share of his work when they
published or printed books with his cover designs. It is most likely that
Leighton and Bradbury knew each other quite well. The purchase of Punch by Bradbury and Evans secured them the company
of writers and artists, from who they commissioned work. Douglas Jerrold wrote Mrs
Caudle’s Curtain lectures in
serialised form, with illustrations by Charles Keene, subsequently made into a
book. An 1856 copy if this work has paper covers, with a cover design by John Leighton. The 1866 publication was issued in cloth, and
also in deluxe
leather, both with the same design by Leighton. Bradbury, Evans also
published Jerrold’s Story of
a Feather in 1867
- cover design by Leighton.
As
founding Editor of Punch, Mark
Lemon was the author of books
published/ printed by Bradbury. The
legends of Number Nip, and the Jest Book were both published by
Macmillan in 1864, printed by Bradbury, Evans. They also printed
Tennyson’s Enoch
Arden,
published by Edward Moxon in 1866. Issued at a price of one guinea, this book
has a cover design by Arthur Hughes. There are two copies in
the British Library, one with green pebble-grain cloth; the other copy has blue sand-grain cloth. The British Museum de Beaumont collection has
two copies: one copy has brown honeycomb-grain cloth. The other copy has the same cover design
blocked as the other three copies, but has no text, with twenty five
illustrations pasted onto backing sheets. This is possibly a specimen book.
Christina
Rossetti’s Goblin Market was first published in 1862 by Macmillan, and printed by Bradbury
& Evans. It has become well known for the title page and frontispiece illustrations, which are the work of her brother Dante
Gabriel Rossetti. This edition is rare in its original covers. The second edition of 1865 was bound by Burn, and has the same
‘geometrical’ design as for the first edition.
Two books
with texts by Sir William Howard Russell were published by Day & Son, lithographers, and printed by Bradbury and Evans. Both have
illustrations after Robert Dudley, who also created the cover designs. A
Memorial of the Marriage of H.R.H. Albert Edward Prince of Wales and H.R.H.
Alexandra Princess of Denmark was
published in 1864, with an elaborate armorial of the royal arms and the Prince
of Wales’s emblems on its upper cover. The royal connection was kept for the
publication of The Atlantic
Telegraph. Illustrated by Robert Dudley. Dedicated by Special Permission to His
Royal Highness Albert Edward Prince of Wales. This commemorated the laying of the first
undersea cable across the Atlantic. The cover design is probably by Dudley, as
he provided all the illustrations for the lithographs in the book. It is
perhaps unique in showing in the centre of the upper cover a cross-section of
the core of the cable laid on the floor of the Atlantic.
In 1856,
Bradbury and Evans published Henry Bradbury’s short
text: On the
security and manufacture of bank notes. A lecture delivered at the Royal
Institution of Great Britain, Albemarle Street, Friday evening, May 9, 1856. The illustrations of the three banknotes are
after John Leighton. In 1869, the Royal Institution published Leighton’s short
lecture: To The Royal Academy of Arts
Upon the Condition and Future of its Library. Pasted on the front of the
plain paper wrapper is a small bookplate which offers the origin of Leighton’s pseudonym, Luke Limner,
derived from the patron saint of artists, St. Luke.
Leighton
was involved in creating expensive books, such as Richard Pigot’s Life of Man, published by Longman in
1866, printed by Bradbury, Evans. Leighton provided the full page illustrations
for each on the months, superintended the other illustrators, and had his
brother, Henry Leighton cut many of illustrations onto woodblocks. John
Leighton also provided a sumptuous cover design for the work.
Perhaps
the oddest work published and printed by Bradbury, Evans was John Leigbhton’s
short text of 1870, using his pseudonym Luke Limner: Madre Natura versus The Moloch of Fashion. A Social Essay. A
diatribe against the evils of corsetry, Leighton deployed his knowledge of
heraldry to provide a pastiche of ‘The Mantua Makers Arms’, printed on the title page, with the arms
being described on the title page verso, in the form of an inverted
triangle:
"/ On a shield sable , a Corset proper; crest, upon a wreath of
roses,/ an Hour-glass or, typical of golden hours wasted. Supporters,/ Harpies:
the dexter "Fashion" crowned with a chig/ -non or, corsetted and
crinoletted proper, her train/ being decorated with bows, and the wings with/
scissors; the sinister, "Vanity", crowned/ with a coronet of pearls
and straw/ -berry leaves, bears the wings of a papillon, eyed proper, the/
queue a[grave] la Paon. Motto,/ "FASHION UNTO DEATH/".
The arms shows
the claw of each of the Harpies pulling tight the laces of a corset.
This
work must have had some success, for the fourth edition was published by Chatto
& Windus in 1874. This has the Mantua Makers Arms, blocked onto the upper cover (and printed on
the title page), with the laces of corsets blocked in black on the borders of
the cover.
It is
likely that the relationship between John Leighton and Bradbury, Evans lasted
for some twenty years, and the collaboration proved fruitful for both of them
Edmund
King
March
2018
