'The Human Race’, by Alfred Crowquill

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The Human Race

Alfred Crowquill

Wood engraving by the Dalziels

1 ½ x 2½ inches

Merry Pictures by the Comic Hands of H. K. Browne, Crowquill, etc., 23

Scanned image and text by Simon Cooke.

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A visual pun, playing with the connotations of the word ‘race’. Though tiny in scale, the image is a well-considered conceit, providing the sort of one-liners that Victorian audiences enjoyed in leisure time at home. The book in which the illustration appears contains some dozens and perhaps hundreds of similar cartoons, representing the nineteenth-century equivalent of a cartoon film or a sketch-show on the television.

Bibliography

Merry Pictures from the Comic Hands of H.K. Browne, Crowquill, Doyle, Leech, Meadows, Hine and Others. London: W. Kent [late D. Bogue], n.d. [1857].

Created 1 June 2017