Edmund Evans

Edmund Evans (23 February 1826 – 21 August 1905) was an

After finishing an apprenticeship, Evans went into business for himself. By the early 1850s, he had established a reputation as a printer of covers for a type of cheap novels known as

Evans used a woodblock printing technique known as chromoxylography, which was used primarily for inexpensive serialised books and children's books requiring few colours, so as to maximize profits. However, chromoxylography allowed a variety of hues and tones to be produced by mixing colours. The process was complicated and required intricate engraving to achieve the best results. Evans possessed a meticulous eye for detail and used a hand-press and as many as a dozen colour blocks for a single image. He went on to become the preeminent wood engraver and colour printer in Britain during the second half of the 19th century.

Apprenticeship and early work

Evans was born in

When his apprenticeship ended in 1847, Evans, then 21, refused an offer of employment from Landells, deciding instead to go into business for himself as a wood-engraver and colour printer. In 1848 Evans engraved a title-page illustration, among other commissions, for the Illustrated London News. However, the Illustrated London News stopped employing him on the basis that his wood engraving was too fine for newspaper work. His final print for the Illustrated London News showed the four seasons, and was illustrated by Foster. In fact Foster received his first commission from the publisher Ingram, Cook, and Company to reproduce the four scenes in oil.^[8] In 1851, Ingram chose Evans to engrave three prints for Ida Pfeiffer's Travels in the Holy Land. He used three blocks for the work: the key-block, outlining the illustration, was printed in a dark-brown hue; the other two were in a buff colour and a grayish-blue colour. For the same firm, Evans completed an order for a book-cover using bright reds and blues on white paper.^[3] That year he received the first commission to print a book, written by Fanny Fern and illustrated by Foster.^[8] Evans had enough business to apprentice his two younger brothers, Wilfred and Herbert,^[1] and to buy a hand-press. Soon he moved his premises to Racquet Court, and bought three more hand-presses.^[8]

In the early 1850s, Evans designed book-covers known as yellow-backs, a "book bound in yellow-glazed paper over boards". He perfected the method and became the printer of choice for many London publishers;^[9] by 1853 he was the chief yellow-back printer in the city.^[10] He developed the yellow-back as he disliked the white paper book-covers that became soiled and discoloured; as a result of this aversion he experimented with yellow paper by treating before adding the printed illustration.^[3] Often yellow-backs were used for unsold editions, so that they functioned as reprints or waste; typically "enormous number of these covers" were left behind for publishers.^[3] Other terms for the books were "Penny dreadfuls", "railway novels" and "mustard plaisters".^[11] For the illustrations, Evans commissioned artists such as George Cruikshank, Phiz, Randolph Caldecott and Walter Crane.^[9] Evans' first cover was brightly coloured, utilising only reds and blues, overprinting blue over black to create what appeared as a black background. He continued the practice of using red and blue, engraving "in graduation" for lighter tints of reds used for faces and hands, and engraving the blue blocks in a manner that created textures and patterns.^[8] Evans realised books that may have been unsuccessful in a first printing were easy to sell with well-designed cover art.^[5]

In the mid-1850s, Evans and Foster visited Scotland to create sketches for a series of guide books, which Evans printed. He later engraved Foster's illustrations for Lady of the Lake, and Foster's illustrations for The Poetical Works of George Herbert (1856), printed in Edinburgh. Of the George Herbert engravings he states: "these illustrations I consider the best that I ever engraved".^[12] By 1856 Evans had "perfected a process of colour printing from wood blocks",^[13] and achieved a reputation as the preeminent wood engraver and best colour printer in London.^[14][15]

In the late 1850s Evans worked on an edition of The Poems of Oliver Goldsmith, illustrated by Foster, published in 1859. The volume was successful enough to warrant a second edition, with 11 more colour-printed illustrations, which was published in 1860. During the 1860s, his most notable work was for

From the late 1850s to the early 1860s, Evans produced the blocks and printed for, among others, books illustrated by William Stephen Coleman including, Common Objects of the Sea Shore, Common Objects of the Country, Our Woodlands, Heaths, and Hedges, and British Butterflies. The printing process used up to 12 colours and, as was his usual practice, a hand-press. During these years he also completed work on Foster's Bible Emblem Anniversary Book, and Little Bird Red and Little Bird Blue.^[20] In 1870, Evans printed In Fairyland, a Series of Pictures from the Elf-World, illustrated by James Doyle's brother Richard in which Doyle depicted fairies living "among birds, snails, butterflies and beetles as large as themselves", and Evans produced his largest wood-engravings for the volume.^[21] The 36 illustrations contained within are "often considered the masterpiece of Victorian illustration."^[22] During the 1860s and 1870s, he was employing up to 30 engravers.^[1]

In 1864, Evans married Mary Spence Brown, Foster's niece, and the couple lived in Witley, Surrey. Foster was their neighbour, as was George Eliot.^[1][23] Commenting on his work, Evans said that it "kept me fully employed mind and body: I had to direct the engravers to the direction of the lines in the colour blocks, and the printers for the tones of the inks for printing, often mixing the inks". Whenever possible he visited Brighton, where he enjoyed the air.^[24]

Process and techniques

During the Victorian period, the art of book illustration gained popularity, supported through the work of wood engravers. Woodcut extended back centuries in Europe and further in Asia. Typically the parts to be printed in black were left in relief by the carver, allowing illustrations to be printed along with the text. Thomas Bewick developed the technique in the 18th century and "perfected the process that was used extensively throughout the 19th century, which necessitated the use of hardwood blocks and tools for metal engraving".^[25] The preferred method of relief engraving had been to work with the grain on the plank side of a block; however Bewick worked the end of the block and carved against the grain using a burin.^[26] Bewick passed his techniques to apprentices, including Landells, who in turn passed them to Evans. In the 1860s, Thomas Bolton developed a method for transferring a photographic image onto block, which enabled the engraver "to work on the surface".^[25]

In the 1830s

watercolour of the frontispiece for Baby's Bouquet to be engraved and printed by Evans.

Evans chromoxylography

print of the shows a rationalisation of the colour scheme, without the dark tonalities and a more intensely patterned arrangement of the wallpaper motifs.

Often the artist drew the illustration in reverse, and directly onto a block; in other cases the printer copied the illustration from a drawing. After the 1860s, images could be photographically projected onto the blocks, although it was more difficult for the printer to carve the reliefs without leaving the distinctive lines of the illustration.[35] Books printed by Evans have been reproduced using some of the original blocks which have "remained in continuous use for over a century".^{[33][Note 1]}

Children's books

Critics regard Evans' most important work to be his prints of children's books with from the latter part of the century with Walter Crane, Kate Greenaway, and Randolph Caldecott which revolutionized children's publishing.^[10] Early in the century children's book were often hand colored, and the chromoxylography processes Evans perfected "brought an immense improvement in coloured picture books for children in the last quarter of the century".^[37] In 1865, Evans agreed with publishing house Routledge and Warne to provide toy books—paperbound books of six pages, to be sold for sixpence each. They "revolutionized the field of children's books" and lent Evans his association with children's book illustrators.^[10] The market for toy books became so great that he began to self-publish and commission the artists for illustrations.^[1] When demand swelled beyond his capacity, he employed other engraving firms to fill the orders.^[38]

The concept of a picture book for children, with the art dominating the text rather than illustrations supplementing the text, was an invention of the mid-19th century.^[39] According to Judith Saltman of the University of British Columbia, Evans' work as a printer of children's picture-books is particularly notable; she believes he printed the "most memorable body of illustrated books for children" in the Victorian era, and the three illustrators, whose works he printed, can be regarded as the "founders of the picture-book tradition in English and American children's books".^[13] He considered full-colour printing a technique well-suited to the simple illustrations in children's books.^[15] Evans reacted against crudely coloured children's book illustrations, which he believed could be beautiful and inexpensive if the print run was large enough to maintain the costs.^[40] In doing so, Evans hired Walter Crane, Kate Greenaway and Randolph Caldecott as illustrators,^[41] all of whom became successful because of Evans' "recognition, encouragement, and brilliant colour reproduction".^{[Note 2]}

Walter Crane

In 1863, Evans employed

Crane was abroad from 1871 to 1873 while Evans continued to print his work. Evans received Crane's illustrations via post, photographed the image to the keyblock to be engraved, and then returned a proof to Crane for colouring.[47] In 1878 Crane and Evans collaborated on The Baby's Opera, a complex project with a dozen fully illustrated pages, and decorative borders on each of the 56 pages.^[43] Crane visited Evans at his home in Witley to design the book. Evans gave Crane a dummy book to design the layout of the entire volume. The first print run consisted of 10,000 copies, but Evans quickly added more as demand for the volume grew.^[23] Evans added more hues to the illustrations, with "light blues, yellows, and brick reds, delicately blended" replacing the brighter colours of earlier work.^[48]

In 1880, Crane illustrated and Evans printed, The Baby's Bouquet: a Fresh Bunch of Old Rhymes and Tunes, which went on to sell hundreds of thousands of copies. The book shows influences ranging from the

The pressure of such steady production caused Crane to stop his work for a period, and Evans replaced him with Randolph Caldecott, whose magazine illustrations he had seen and liked.^[50] Initially Evans hired Caldecott to draw illustrations for nursery rhyme books,^[51] beginning with another printing of The House that Jack Built in 1877.^[52] Evans proposed to fill each page with an illustration, which were "often little more than outlines" to avoid the blank pages which were customary in toy books of the period.^[53] In 1878 The Diverting History of John Gilpin was published, illustrated by Caldecott and printed by Evans.^[40] Evans supplied Caldecott with materials for the illustrations and payment based on sales quantities. Evans explained the business arrangement:

I agreed to run all the risks of engraving the key blocks which he drew on wood; after he finished colouring a proof I would furnish him, on drawing paper, I would engrave the blocks to be printed in as few colours as necessary ... the key block in dark brown, then a flesh tint for the faces, hands, and wherever it would bring the other colours as nearly as possible to his painted copy, a red, a blue, a yellow and a grey.^[53]

Beginning in 1878 through 1885, Caldecott illustrated two books a year for Evans, and secured his reputation as an illustrator.^[50][54] The books were released for the Christmas season, when sales would be sufficient to warrant print runs as large as 100,000. Later, collected editions of four works reprinted in a single volume were published.^[55] Throughout the late 1870s, Evans and Caldecott collaborated on 17 books, considered Caldecott's best, and to have changed the "course of children's illustrated books".^[40] Caldecott drew pen and ink illustrations on plain paper that were photographed to wood. Evans "engraved in facsimile" the illustration to the woodblock.^[53] Six blocks (one for each colour) were used to create a multi-colour "image of extremely delicate quality".^[40]

Caldecott died of tuberculosis in 1886,^[40] and the following year Evans printed a collection of his picture books, titled The Complete Collection of Pictures & Songs.^[56] Ruari McLean explains in the introduction to Evans' Reminiscences, that as late as the 1960s reprints of Caldecott's The House that Jack Built were "astonishingly, still being printed from the plates made from the original wood-blocks engraved by Edmund Evans".^[57]

Kate Greenaway

In the late 1870s,

After I had engraved the blocks and colour blocks, I printed the first edition of 20,000 copies, and was ridiculed by the publishers for risking such a large edition of a six-shilling book; but the edition sold before I could reprint another edition; in the meantime copies were sold at a premium. Reprinting kept on till 70,000 was reached.[61]

When

During the 1880s, Evans printed two to three Greenaway books a year, including a run of 150,000 copies of Kate Greenaway's Birthday Book (1880),

almanacs—one each year.^[67] Greenaway benefitted from her association with Evans. As the leading publisher of children's books, Routledge provided Greenaway with a commercial base she may not have achieved without Evans' influence. Children's literature scholar Anne Lundin claims the distinctive quality of Evans' printing, as wells as his popularity as a children's book printer, linked Greenaway's name with his, thereby increasing her commercial appeal.^[29] Greenaway often visited the Evans family, played with their three daughters and continued to visit Evans after his move to Ventnor.^[68] During her career as an illustrator, Greenaway used Evans as sole engraver and printer.^[57]

Later work and retirement

Evans eventually converted to the

three-colour printing technique.^[69] In 1902 he used the "recently developed Hentschel three-colour process", at Beatrix Potter's request, to print her watercolour illustrations for her first book, The Tale of Peter Rabbit.^[49] Towards the end of his career, not all of his work was devoted to the three-colour process; in 1902 he engraved and printed Old English Songs and Dances for W. Graham Robertson, which was described as "harmonious" and "delicate".^[70]

In 1892, Evans moved to Ventnor on the

typescript released to him by Evans' grandson which was published by the Oxford University Press in 1967.^[71]

Evans died in 1905, and is buried in Ventnor cemetery.

managing director.^[1] Before his death Evans offered Beatrix Potter an interest in the company which she refused, having recently bought a farm in the Lake District.^[72]

A substantial number of Evans' original engraved wooden blocks are held at the St Bride Printing Library in London.

Additional Evans images

• 
  Using the same pigments as Foster, Evans ground the inks for the prints in The Poems of Oliver Goldsmith, published in 1859.^[15]
• 
  -->Evans used as many as ten colour blocks for the prints in A Chronicle of England, illustrated by James Doyle, and printed in 1864.^[28]
• 
  Caldecott's illustrations in The Fox Jumps Over the Parson's Gate (1883) show the subtle blend of colours Evans achieved with only a few colour blocks.^[40]
• 
  -->

  The Pied Piper of Hamelin (1888) shows subtle colour squashing on the piper's robe, and the use of cross hatchings to blend colours, characteristics of chromoxylography.^[73]

Detail of John Gilpin

• 
  Image from The Diverting History of John Gilpin
• 
  Detail showing vertical hatchings, a variety of ink colours, and stippling.

References

Notes

1. ^ On page viii of The Caldecott Aesop: Twenty Fables : A Facsimile of the 1883 Edition, a production note states that the "majority of color plates were made from the first woodblock renderings of Caldecott's work". The statement is not sufficiently clear to indicate to what extent the original blocks were used, however the cracks in the colour plates suggest that the original blocks may in fact have been used.^[36]
2. ^ "Edmund Evans, who had printed Richard Doyle's pictures for William Allingham's poem In Fairyland in a range of subtle colours in 1870, was the key figure to whom the trio of great illustrators of the end of the century, Walter Crane, Kate Greenaway and Randolph Caldecott, owed recognition, encouragement and brilliant colour reproduction."^[42]

Citations

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} McLean, Evans
2. ^ ^{a b c} Evans, pp. 4–7
3. ^ ^{a b c d} Hardie, pp. 266–268
4. ^ ^{a b} Evans, pp. 9–10
5. ^ ^{a b} Spielmann Punch, pp. 445–446
6. ^ Spielmann, Punch, p. 16
7. ^ Evans, p. 14
8. ^ ^{a b c d} Evans, pp. 20–26
9. ^ ^{a b} Ray, p. 64
10. ^ ^{a b c d e} Ray, p. 149
11. ^ ^{a b c d} Crane, pp. 74–76
12. ^ Evans, p. 30
13. ^ ^{a b} Saltman, p. 211
14. ^ Hildebrand, Ryan (2006). "Picture This: Five Centuries of Book Illustration" (PDF). The UC Irvine Libraries. University of California. p. 7. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 January 2012. Retrieved 18 July 2010.
15. ^ ^{a b c d e f} "Color Printing in the Nineteenth Century". University of Delaware Library. Retrieved 28 February 2010.
16. ^ ^{a b c} Pankow, p. 22
17. ^ Spielmann, p. 56
18. ^ Evans, pp. 41–42
19. ^ ^{a b} Evans, p. 32
20. ^ ^{a b} Hardie, p. 269
21. ^ Ray, p. 90
22. ^ Susina, p.233
23. ^ ^{a b} Crane, pp. 178–180
24. ^ Evans, p. 49
25. ^ ^{a b} Lundin, "Victorian Horizons"
26. ^ Gasgoigne, section 6.a
27. ^ Hardie, p. 272
28. ^ ^{a b} Ray, p. 150
29. ^ ^{a b} Lundin, Sensational Designs, pp. 163–164
30. ^ ^{a b} Spielmann, pp. 64–65
31. ^ ^{a b} Alderson, 1989
32. ^ Gasgoigne, section 23.c
33. ^ ^{a b} Wellon, Arvon (2001). "Wood Engraving". The Cambridge Guide to Children's Books in English. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 18 July 2010.
34. ^ Gasgoigne, section 68
35. ^ Gasgoigne, section 6.c
36. ^ Richardson, p. 33
37. ^ Hunt, p. 164
38. ^ ^{a b c} McNair, 1987
39. ^ Hunt, p. 674
40. ^ ^{a b c d e f} "Randolph Caldecott Papers". de Grummond Collection. University of Southern Mississippi. Retrieved 28 February 2010.
41. ^ "Picturebooks". The Cambridge Guide to Children's Books in English. Cambridge University Press. 2001. Retrieved 18 July 2010.
42. ^ "illustration in children's books". The Cambridge Guide to Children's Books in English. Cambridge University Press. 2001. Retrieved 18 July 2010.
43. ^ ^{a b c d e} "Illustrated Books by Walter Crane" (PDF). Library and Archives. National Gallery of Canada. January 2007. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 July 2011. Retrieved 22 July 2010.
44. ^ McLean, p. xvi
45. ^ Crane, p. 107
46. ^ Crane, pp. 152–156
47. ^ Crane, pp. 147–148
48. ^ Hardie, p. 274
49. ^ ^{a b} "Historical survey of children's literature in the British Library". The British Library. Archived from the original on 11 August 2018. Retrieved 30 May 2010.
50. ^ ^{a b} Ray, p. 154
51. ^ Lundin, Beyond Ivory Towers, p. 73
52. ^ Crane, p. 183
53. ^ ^{a b c} Evans, p. 56
54. ^ Richardson, p. 33
55. ^ Hegel, p. xiii
56. ^ "Library of Congress Online Catalog". Library of Congress. Retrieved 24 May 2010.
57. ^ ^{a b c d} McLean, p. xvii
58. ^ Lundin, Anne. "In A Different Place: Feminist Aethestics in the Picture Book" (PDF). pdf. Retrieved 1 March 2010.
59. ^ Evans qtd. in Spielmann, p. 57
60. ^ Ray, p. 466
61. ^ ^{a b c} Spielmann, p. 58
62. ^ Evans qtd. in Spielmann, pp. 57–58
63. The University of Southern Mississippi
    . March 2009. Retrieved 18 July 2010.
64. ^ Cunningham, Peter (2001). "Under The Window (1879)". The Cambridge Guide to Children's Books in English. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 18 July 2010.
65. ^ Evans, p. 61
66. ^ Cunningham, Peter (2001). "Greenaway, Kate 1846–1901". The Cambridge Guide to Children's Books in English. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 18 July 2010.
67. ^ "Calendar Girl: Kate Greenaway's Almanacs". Smithsonian Libraries. Archived from the original on 29 May 2010. Retrieved 28 February 2010.
68. ^ Evans, p. 65
69. ^ Hardy, p. 272
70. ^ Ray, p. 176
71. ^ ^{a b c} McLean, p. xviii
72. ^ Lear, p. 255
73. ^ Gasgoigne, section 55.s

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Further reading

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Edmund Evans.

• Billington, Elizabeth T.; Caldecott, Randolph (1978). "Randolph Caldecott and Edmund Evans: A Partnership of Equals". The Randolph Caldecott treasury. London: F. Warne.
  ISBN 0-7232-6139-3
  .
• OVERTON, Jacquelin Marion (1946). "Edmund Evans, color-printer extraordinary". The Horn Book Magazine. 22: 109–18.
• Spencer, Isobel (1975). Walter Crane. Macmillan Publishing Company.

External links

• Works by Edmund Evans at Project Gutenberg
• Works by Edmund Evans (illustrator) at Faded Page (Canada)
• Works by or about Edmund Evans at Internet Archive
• Works by Edmund Evans at Toronto Public Library
• Edmund Evans at Library of Congress, with 41 library catalogue records