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1851, or, The Adventures of Mr. and Mrs. Sandboys
George Cruikshank
1851
wood-engraving
19 x 12.4 cm
"Wrapper Design" by Cruikshank for Henry Mayhew's 1851: or, The Adventures of Mr. and Mrs. Sandboys and family who came up to London to "enjoy themselves," and to see the Great Exhibition., serialised (1851).
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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Contemporary with such writers and artists as Charles Dickens (1812-70) and Hablot Knight Browne (1815-82), Henry Mayhew (25 November 1812 — 25 July 1887), trained as a lawyer, but, like Dickens is remembered as an English journalist, playwright and advocate of reform — although not usually as a novelist. He was, more pertinently, one of the co-founders of the satirical weekly magazine Punch; or, The London Charivari, and served with Dickens's friend Mark Lemon as the magazine's joint-editor in the 1840s. He and Lemon recruited a group of talented writers and illustrators, many from the Dickens Circle, to join the venture, including writers Douglas Jerrold, Shirley Brooks, Angus Reach, and illustrators John Leech and Richard Doyle. He is largely known for his work as a social researcher, publishing an extensive series of newspaper articles in the Morning Chronicle that was later compiled into the book series London Labour and the London Poor (1851), an innovative sociological study of the urban problems of crime, sanitation, housing, transportation, and poverty. Consequently, his foray into satirical fiction (or, perhaps, documentary-sociological fiction) with veteran illustrator and caricaturist George Cruikshank, twenty years his senior, in 1851: or, The adventures of Mr and Mrs [Cursty] Sandboys and family who came up to London to "enjoy themselves", and to see the Great Exhibition is something of a rarity among his works, revealing the influence of Punch here on his views of the problems of urbanisation.
Recently constructed railway lines, radiating outward from London, had made tourism for the rising middle classes in the provinces a reality. The first world's fair, The Great Exhibition of 1851, showcasing the triumphs of British industry and the arts in Joseph Paxton's innovative glass buildings in Hyde Park, was not restricted by class or even by region, and was open for fully six months (May through October, 1851), giving hundreds of thousands from Great Britain and abroad (as suggested by the mixed crowd in Cruikshank's wrapper, which even shows a foreign gentleman in a Turkish fez) the opportunity to attend. "This was an event that would showcase not only material from Britain, but from many different countries which most ordinary people could not even dream of visiting" (University of Reading). Proposed by the Prince Consort, Victoria's husband, Albert, it gave ordinary Britons a window on the world. Such tourists from the provinces, touring the World's Fair at the Crystal Palace in central London are the Sandboys from Cumbria in Henry Mayhew’s comic novel 1851: or, The Adventures of Mr. and Mrs Cursty Sandboys and Family. As Mayhew's title suggests, the fictional tourists encounter precisely the kinds of problems that real fair-goers encountered in 1851, including finding appropriate accommodation for the night. The serial publication's first number, for February 1851, actually anticipated the opening of the fair several months later.
Their way is constantly interrupted by problems, and Mr Sandboys only makes it to the Exhibition as it has just closed. It is primarily a humorous book full of misadventures, but it also contains some more serious descriptions of London and the Exhibition. Noted caricaturist George Cruikshank produced the illustrations for Mayhew's novel. These illustrations were published by Bogue’s of Fleet Street, London, who worked with both Cruikshank and Mayhew on several occasions. — University of Reading, Special Collections: Special Collections featured item for October 2008 by Rebecca Jennings, Library Assistant.
See “Other Related Material” below for a link to an image on another site of the original blue-green serial wrapper for February 1851. The present illustration appears in McLean, p. 85. In it, a huckster dressed like a Beefeater from the Tower of London, with a headpiece shaped like a globe, lectures a mixed crowd of foreigners and ordinary Britons interested in learning more about the forthcoming Great Exhibition. The title "The World's Show" stands above the portal of the caravan, which apparently is heated by a stove, not unlike the vehicle used by Dickens's Doctor Marigold in the 1865 extra-Christmas Number for All the Year Round.
Burton, Anthony. "Cruikshank as an Illustrator of Fiction." George Cruikshank: A Revaluation. Ed. Robert L. Patten. Princeton: Princeton U. P., 1974, rev., 1992. Pp. 92-128.
Cohen, Jane Rabb. Part One, "Dickens and His Early Illustrators: 1. George Cruikshank. Charles Dickens and His Original Illustrators. Columbus: Ohio University Press, 1980. Pp. 15-38.
Kitton, Frederic G. "George Cruikshank." Dickens and His Illustrators. London: Chapman & Hall, 1899. Pp. 1-28.
McLean, Ruari. George Cruikshank: His Life and Work as a Book Illustrator. English Masters of Black-and-White. London: Art and Technics, 1948.
Mayhew, Henry, and George Cruikshank. 1851: or, The Adventures of Mr and Mrs [Cursty] Sandboys and family who came up to London to "enjoy themselves", and to see the Great Exhibition. London : George Newbold & D. Bogue, 1851. With 9 illustrations plus serial wrapper (also used as decorative title-page in volume).
University of Reading, Special Collections: featured item for October 2008 by Rebecca Jennings, Library Assistant. "1851: or, The adventures of Mr and Mrs Sandboys and family." http://www.reading.ac.uk/web/files/special-collections/featuregreatexhibition.pdf
Last modified 14 July 2017