Literary Criticism (1400-1800)

Hogarth, William | Robert Halsband (essay date 1984)

Robert Halsband (essay date 1984)

SOURCE: Halsband, Robert. “Hogarth's Graphic Friendships: Illustrating Books by Friends.” In Johnson and His Age, edited by James Engell, pp. 333-66. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984.

[In the following essay, Halsband examines Hogarth's secondary career as a book illustrator for such notable eighteenth-century authors as Henry Fielding and Laurence Sterne.]

As a painter and draftsman-engraver William Hogarth ranks high in eighteenth-century British art. As a book illustrator, although here he expresses a lesser aspect of his genius, he is worthy of attention as well.1 When he illustrated works by contemporary writers whom he knew personally, we can examine the illustrations in a biographical context to supplement other relevant contexts. His friendships with writers cover a wide range, from close intimacy (as with William Huggins) at one extreme, to that of mere...

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