Nature's Engraver: A Life of Thomas Bewick

Citation

Hannabuss, S. (2007), "Nature's Engraver: A Life of Thomas Bewick", Library Review, Vol. 56 No. 9, pp. 849-851. https://doi.org/10.1108/00242530710831419

The life and work of Thomas Bewick is of interest to everyone from the general reader to the specialist in book illustration, the bibliography of natural history, early children's books, chapbooks and ephemera. He was, as biographer Jenny Uglow says, “a rare artist in that he speaks directly both to adults and to children, who respond at once to his small scenes”. These small scenes usually took the form of wood‐engravings (on box wood) and were often vignettes of animals and people in life‐like settings. The personality of the animals and birds, and the humour and understanding of human nature, that come through these illustrations have endeared them to thousands of readers for a long time.

Jenny Uglow's biography attracted praise the moment it was published, just as did her other works like her biographies of Elizabeth Gaskell and Hogarth and her history of gardening. This is a book for the general reader that also has a lot to offer the expert because Uglow skilfully weaves a story that takes in as much of Bewick's personal life as his business life. Both add up to a highly readable book that will form an ideal introduction to Bewick for anyone who knows little about him. This makes the book an ideal addition to the biography section in the public library and, when it appears in paperback, it will be an ideal present.

The bibliography of Thomas Bewick has evolved in interesting ways, and the work of Iain Bain (on the watercolours and drawings of Bewick and his apprentices) and Sydney Roscoe (his bibliography raisonné), along with various editions of Bewick's autobiographical Memoirs and of his histories of quadrupeds and of (land and water) birds (many in popular facsimile editions) may be familiar to readers. It is perhaps understandable that library and information practitioners, bibliographers and cultural historians will be most interested in those aspects of Bewick's life that hinge around his business – the sketches and engravings, the design of text and illustration for the big projects like the quadrupeds and the birds (and the unfinished fishes), how apprentices were set to work and how the workshop was organized, how books were published and distributed (usually by subscription).

On a wider commercial front, Bewick (and his long‐time partner Beilby) ran a workshop that dealt with an astonishing range of printing, illustrative, and publishing tasks, from theatre playbills and bill‐heads and trade cards to full books of poems (like Goldsmith's) and natural history. In fact, “Bewick's own Quadrupeds and History of British Birds were only a tiny part of the workshop's vast and varied output”, p. 237). Bewick's own interest from childhood in sketching from nature grew into a specialized interest in these projects, but his concerns for the “daily bread” of all the other activities, and the bills and financial controls associated with them, spread through his entire life.

The perfectionism he showed in getting the animals and birds objectively and scientifically right, and in revealing (and this is his genius) the personality or character of the creature shown (and often adding a wry moral and not a little humour) was a dedication he showed in all the other work. There were problems – the widow of a former apprentice who sued for rights, financial problems, the impact of political and social change in his native Newcastle area – yet he persisted through all these to produce the work that is vividly remembered today. Uglow rightly suggests that, even though there was a strong commercial pragmatism about much of his work, he brought a unique insight to wood‐engraving itself (he was dissatisfied with much contemporary work) that gave him the confidence to say that his own work would add something distinctive to books (like those of Buffon and others) that existed already.

For historians of the book trade, and readers interested in the distribution and subscription arrangements, we get a glimpse not only of Bewick's workshop and costings, but of his work for Stothard and Elizabeth Newbery (this is one reason of many that make Bewick's work relevant to historians of children's books), the commissions he sought and the feedback he got when he became a celebrity and new reprints and editions were called for, and how numerous arrangements were made locally in Newcastle for work there. His own Memoir has an appealing nostalgia and a love of nature in the manner of Rousseau that make him a very attractive person to know. Other and later writers acknowledged this – Charlotte Brontë said she was happy with Bewick on her knee, and his work drew praise from Clare and Wordsworth, Kingsley and Beatrix Potter (which whom he has much in common).

Jenny Uglow's work is widely admired for its ability to capture the whole person in their setting, and in this her work is like that of Bewick's itself. We get a full picture of Bewick's personal life from this book – his childhood, apprenticeship, early struggles to get on, marriage and family life, preoccupations with the account book, moments of sadness and joy. Beyond that Jenny Uglow paints in some of the social and political background (Bewick himself as “a warm whig” had strong views and many debates with friends, there was a war with France and then Peterloo, there was much social change).

On a more specialist note, there is Bewick's reputation since his death in 1828: the growth of lithography and then in the 20th‐century the rediscovery of wood‐engraving by Ravilous and Raverat and others. More on the wood chromo work of people like Kronheim would have made this chronology more informed but the biography is not really a history of book illustration: others exist for that (like Buchanan‐Brown, (2005)). Faber have also designed a book with Bewick's own vignettes (and some well‐chosen colour‐plates), making this a most attractive book for any library at all.

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