Dore gustave

1872 · 2121232 — 1872. London: Grant & Co. 1872. Folio. Original burgundy cloth lettered in gilt to front and spine bevelled edges; pp. x xii 191 1 illustrated by Dore with 54 full page wood engraved plates with titled tissue-guards and 126 engravings throughout the text; a little shelf wear to extremities occasional foxing generally very good.First edition. The theme of this book had been anticipated by Matthew Arnold three years earlier when he wrote of ""London with its unutterable external hideousness and with its internal canker of publice egestas priviatim opulentia - to use the words which Sallust puts into Cato's mouth about Rome - unequalled in the world"" Culture and Anarchy London 1869 p.31. Gustave Dore collaborated with the journalist Blanchard Jerrold to explore Victorian London spending four years to produce this masterpiece in which the chiaroscuro illustrations embody the light and shade of the city. ""Dore's devastating realization of the contrast of wealth and poverty in a modern metropolis makes London one of the great illustrated books of the world."" Gordon Ray The Illustrator and the Book in England from 1790 to 1914 describing the English edition.This book had a considerable influence on Vincent van Gogh who dubbed it ""superb and noble in sentiment"". hardcover