Tennyson and Gladstone by John Tenniel</span>

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Tennyson and Gladstone

John Tenniel, artist

Swain, engraver

Wood engraving

Punch (22 September 1883)

Click on image to enlarge it.

William E. Gladstone (homepage)

Alfred Lord Tennyson (homepage)

Another Punch cartoon pairing Tennyson and Gladstone

You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you credit the Hathi Trust and he Getty Research Institute and link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one. — George P. Landow

Theodore Watts, who included this cartoon in a two-part article in the Magazine of Art about portraits of the Poet Laureatte, points out that the caricatures pairs “Tennyson and he [Gladstone] who is, perhaps, for vigour the most amazing even among the giants who began life in the early years of this century, the old friend with whose name his own cannot fail to be associated, are brought together by the genius of Tenniel . . . For many years Tennyson had no more loyal admirer than Mr. Punch, whose poetical tribute to his memory after his death was so good as to deserve the gratitude of all Tennysonians.

Tenniel’s design, which appeared in Punch, 22nd September, 1883, shows Mr. Gladstone as a sailor dancing the hornpipe to the Tennysonian lyre, an admirable thing, both in conception and in execution.”

Bibliography

Watts, Theodore. “The Portraits of Lord Tennyson.” Magazine of Art 16 (1893): 37-43, 96-101. Hathi Trust version of a copy in the Getty Research Institute. Web. 24 December 2020.

Created 25 December 2020