At the fin de siècle, the Victorian illustrated book experienced what some critics consider a decline and others call a third period of development. “Caricature and Realism” examines the validity of both viewpoints. Publishing trends and intertwining economic and aesthetic factors led to the decline of newly released, large-circulation fiction during the final decades of the nineteenth century in England. These include the waning of serial fiction, cost factors, a rise in literacy, the changing nature of the novel, new developments in illustration, and competition from other media. However, the Victorian illustrated book thrived in several areas—certain serial formats, artists’ books, children’s literature, and the U.S. market—and in some of these forms of material culture, we witness a reengagement with the caricature tradition as well as a continuation of the representational school. This chapter surveys late Victorian illustrated fiction marketed to different audiences according to social class, age, gender, and nation. This chapter also foregrounds two fin-de-siècle author-illustrators—Beatrix Potter, best known for The Tale of Peter Rabbit, and George Du Maurier, who gained fame with Trilby—to demonstrate continuity in the arc of the illustrated book and a media frenzy of Pickwickian magnitude.
The Transformed Beast:Penny Dreadful, Adaptation, and the Gothic
