British Illustrators 19: George Cruikshank and Oliver Twist

Contrary to what you might think, not all of Charles Dickens’ novels were originally illustrated by Phiz (real name Hablot Knight Brown). His second novel, Oliver Twist, was illustrated by George Cruikshank, a very well-known illustrator of his day.

We could argue about whether it’s fair to put Dickens’ novels into the category of children’s literature. Certainly his contemporary audience included all ages and pretty much all classes. Leaving that to one side, though, I’ve been a lover of Dickens ever since I first read “David Copperfield” as a kid. It took me longer than any other novel I’d read up to that point, but it was well worth it.

As for George Cruickshank, in the early part of his career he was pretty much a successor to political cartoonist James Gillray. When he illustrated Dickens “Sketches by Boz” he was far more well known and popular than the author, although Dickens’ success would come to far outstrip Cruikshank. In later years Cruickshank claimed credit for much of the plot of Olver Twist, which frankly seems unlikely. It’s worth noting that he waited until Dickens had died before writing a letter to the Times to claim as much in 1871. Cruikshank is interesting to me because he provides a link between the cartoonist illustrators of Gillray’s generation, and those of Tenniel’s generation.