UVa Library Press Releases
U.VA. LIBRARY RECEIVES RARE VANITY FAIR PRINTS OF VICTORIAN PERSONALITIES
Contact: Melissa Cox Norris at (434) 924-4254 or mln4n@virginia.edu
March 20, 2002 - A retired University of Virginia
literature scholar has donated to the U.Va. Library
nearly 900 rare caricatures of important figures from
Victorian and Edwardian England.
The prints were given by professor emeritus Cecil
Lang, a leading 19th century literature expert, to
the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library,
and originally appeared in the legendary British "smart
set" magazine, Vanity Fair.
The urbane and trend-setting London weekly captured
the interest and imagination of subscribers from 1868
to 1914 with its political, economic and society news,
enhanced by chromolithographic caricatures of eminent
personalities of the times. One of the most successful
of the vast numbers of periodicals in 19th century
England, Vanity Fair has been likened to a
combination of today's Harper's Bazaar, Town and
Country and The New Yorker.
"While the prints are quite amusing and entertaining
in themselves, more importantly they are a valuable
collection and important resource with obvious research
potential in Victorian and Edwardian literature and
history, fine arts and the history of printing,"
said Kathryn N. Morgan, associate director of the
Special Collections Library.
University Librarian Karin Wittenborg added: "The
Vanity Fair prints are a significant addition
to our rare materials on Victorian literature and
history. Mr. Lang is renowned as a scholar of that
period and it is a particular honor to receive this
gift from him."
Lang, a U.Va. professor of English from 1967 to 1991
who lives in Charlottesville, collected the prints
as a reference resource of notable Victorians while
he was editing the letters of the British writer Matthew
Arnold.
Each Vanity Fair issue featured a cartoon,
or caricature, depicting a prominent person of lasting
-- or fleeting -- fame during the golden age of the
British Empire. Vanity Fair's founding editor, Thomas
Gibson Bowles, referred to the illustrations as "the
unheroic representation of heroes." More than
2,000 of these caricatures appeared of subjects that
included artists, athletes, royalty, statesmen, scientists,
authors, actors, soldiers and scholars. Among Lang's
set, for example, are drawings of Winston Churchill,
Robert Browning, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Charles Darwin,
Rudyard Kipling and Queen Victoria.
Produced by an international group of talented artists,
the illustrations are the chief legacy of the magazine
and now form a unique and valuable pictorial record
of the period. Among the artists who contributed illustrations
were Sir Max Beerbohm, Sir Leslie Ward (who signed
his work "Spy"), the Italian Carlo Pellegrini
(known as "Ape"), the French artist James
Jacques Tissot and the American Thomas Nast.
The prints are now available in the Special Collections
Library and are cataloged in VIRGO, the Library's
online catalog at www.lib.virginia.edu.
The Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library
houses the University's many outstanding collections
of rare books and manuscripts. The primary focus of
these collections is American history and literature,
in particular, the Tracy W. McGregor Library of American
History and the Clifton Waller Barrett Library of
American Literature. Among the treasures to be found
in Special Collections are Thomas Jefferson's papers
and his architectural drawings of the University of
Virginia; the Paul Mellon Collection of Americana;
and the largest single collection of William Faulkner
editions, manuscripts and personal papers. To learn
more about the resources found in Special Collections,
visit the Web site www.lib.virginia.edu/speccol
or call (434) 924-3025.
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Reporters: A high-resolution electronic
image of one of the prints is available upon request
from Melissa Cox Norris at (434) 924-4254 or mln4n@virginia.edu
