Wednesday, March 16, 2011

The Scourge : or, Monthly Expositor of Imposture and Folly. London: Printed by W.N. Jones for M. Jones, 1811.

William N. Jones’s iconoclastic journal The Scourge: Monthly Expositor of Literary, Dramatic, Medical, Political, Mercantile and Religious Imposture and Folly (1811-1816) presents a cornucopia of biting satire aimed at every area of British society. What it is perhaps best known for is its presentation of George Cruikshank’s early work. Cruikshank’s hand-colored engravings were folded into the front of each issue (with extras being sold as separate prints). A famed British caricaturist and book illustrator whose many notable works include the illustrations for Charles Dickens’s Sketches by Boz, The Mudfog Papers, and Oliver Twist, Cruikshank began his long and prolific career as a teenager drawing for The Scourge. The caricatures he created therein were highly radical, political, and informed, and as such move beyond mere decoration to intellectual and historical significance.

Click here to view this work on the Internet Archive.