Harry Furniss
The Confessions of a Caricaturist
(Vol. 1&2)
Published by
Books
- Advanced Digital Solutions & High-Quality eBook Formatting -
2021 OK Publishing
EAN 4064066381776
Table of Contents
Volume 1
Table of Contents
CHAPTER I. CONFESSIONS OF MY CHILDHOOD—AND AFTER.
CHAPTER II. BOHEMIAN CONFESSIONS.
CHAPTER III. MY CONFESSIONS AS A SPECIAL ARTIST.
CHAPTER IV. THE CONFESSIONS OF AN ILLUSTRATOR—A SERIOUS CHAPTER
CHAPTER V. A CHAT BETWEEN MY PEN AND PENCIL.
CHAPTER VI. PARLIAMENTARY CONFESSIONS.
PREFACE.
If, in these volumes, I have made some joke at a friend's expense, let that friend take it in the spirit intended, and—I apologise beforehand.
In America apology in journalism is unknown. The exception is the well-known story of the man whose death was published in the obituary column. He rushed into the office of the paper and cried out to the editor:
"Look here, sur, what do you mean by this? You have published two columns and a half of my obituary, and here I am as large as life!"
The editor looked up and coolly said, "Sur, I am vury sorry, I reckon there is a mistake some place, but it kean't be helped. You are killed by the Jersey Eagle, you are to the world buried. We nevur correct anything, and we nevur apologise in Amurrican papers."
"That won't do for me, sur. My wife's in tears; my friends are laughing at me; my business will be ruined—you must apologise."
"No, si—ree, an Amurrican editor nevur apologises."
"Well, sur, I'll take the law on you right away. I'm off to my attorney."
"Wait one minute, sur—just one minute. You are a re-nowned and popular citizen: the Jersey Eagle has killed you—for that I am vury, vury sorry, and to show you my respect I will to-morrow find room for you—in the births column."
Now do not let any editor imagine these pages are my professional obituary—my autobiography. If by mistake he does, then let him place me immediately in their births column. I am in my forties, and there is quite time for me to prepare and publish two more volumes of my "Confessions" from my first to my second birth, and many other things, before I am fifty.
London, 1901.
[The Author begs to acknowledge his indebtedness to the Proprietors and the Editor of Punch, the Proprietors of the Magazine of Art, the Graphic, the Illustrated London News, English Illustrated Magazine, Cornhill Magazine, Harper's Magazine, Westminster Gazette, St. James' Gazette, the British Weekly and the Sporting Times for their kindness in allowing him to reproduce extracts and pictures in these volumes.]
CHAPTER I.
CONFESSIONS OF MY CHILDHOOD—AND AFTER.
Introductory—Birth and Parentage—The Cause of my remaining a Caricaturist—The Schoolboys' Punch—Infant Prodigies—As a Student—I Start in Life—Zozimus—The Sullivan Brothers—Pigott—The Forger—The Irish "Pathriot"—Wood Engraving—Tom Taylor—The Wild West—Judy—Behind the Scenes—Titiens—My First and Last Appearance in a Play—My Journey to London—My Companion—A Coincidence.
In offering the following pages to the public, I should like it to be known that no interviewer has extracted them from me by the thumbscrew of a morning call, nor have they been wheedled out of me by the caresses of those iron-maidens of literature, the publishers. For the most part they have been penned in odd half-hours as I sat in my easy-chair in the solitude of my studio, surrounded by the aroma of the post-prandial cigarette.
I would also at the outset warn those who may purchase this work in the expectation of finding therein the revelations of a caricaturist's Chamber of Horrors, that they will be disappointed. Some day I may be tempted to bring forth my skeletons from the seclusion of their cupboards and strip my mummies, taking certain familiar figures and faces to pieces and exposing not only the jewels with which they were packed away, but all those spicy secrets too which are so relished by scandal-loving readers.
At present, however, I am in an altogether lighter and more genial vein. My confessions up to date are of a purely personal character, and like a literary Liliputian I am placing myself in the hand of that colossal Gulliver the Public.
I may, it is true, in the course of my remarks be led to retaliate to some extent upon those who have had the hardihood to assert that all caricaturists ought, in the interest of historical accuracy, to be shipped on board an unseaworthy craft and left in the middle of the Channel, for the crime of handing