Heroes or Monsters – Woodpeckings

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Dalziel, 'The Erl King', illustration for Walter Scott, Poetical Works — 1. Monsters

Dalziel, after Thomas Dalziel (?), illustration for Charles Kingsley, Madam How and Lady Why — 2. Monsters

Dalziel after John Tenniel, illustration for 'Looking-Glass House', in Lewis Carroll — 3. Monsters

Dalziel after Alfred Thomspon, ‘Lecture on Bogueys’, illustration for Tom Hood — 4. Monsters

Dalziel after Arthur Hughes, illustration for George Macdonald, Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood — 5. Monsters

Dalziel after John Tenniel, illustration for Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson], Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland — 6. Monsters

Dalziel after William Small, illustration for George Macdonald, Robert Falconer — 7. Modern Heroes

Dalziel, unidentified commercial illustration, perhaps advertising a fire extinguisher or service — 8. Modern Heroes

Dalziel, unidentified illustration — 9. Modern Heroes

Dalziel after Arthur Boyd Houghton, ‘Hiawatha’, illustration for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Poetical Works — 10. Modern Heroes

Dalziel after Arthur Boyd Houghton, ‘Fight for the Ibex’, illustration for Anne Bowman, The Boy Pilgrims — 11. Modern Heroes

Dalziel after John Tenniel, illustration for frontispiece to Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson], Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There — 12. Comic Chivalry

Dalziel after George du Maurier, ‘Grey Dolphin’, illustration for Thomas Ingoldsby [R. H. Barham], The Ingoldsby Legends — 13. Comic Chivalry

Dalziel after John Tenniel, illustration for ‘It’s my own invention’, Lewis Carroll — 14. Comic Chivalry

Dalziel after Arthur Boyd Houghton, frontispiece for Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, The Adventures of Don Quixote de la Mancha — 15. Comic Chivalry

Dalziel after Miss E. Taylor, for Anthony Trollope, Can you Forgive Her? — 16. Heroic Women

Dalziel after Arthur Hughes, illustration for George Macdonald, At the Back of the North Wind, serialised in the magazine Good Words for the Young — 17. Heroic Women

Dalziel after Arthur Hughes, unidentified illustration made for the publisher Smith & Co — 18. Heroic Women

Dalziel, ‘The Eagle in Love’, illustration for James M Haswell, The Man of his Time: The Story of the Life of Napoleon III — 19. Vulnerable Monsters

Dalziel after John Tenniel, illustration for ‘The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill’, Lewis Carroll — 20. Vulnerable Monsters

Dalziel, 'Vision of Don Roderick', illustration for Walter Scott, Poetical Works — 21. The Grotesque

Dalziel after John Tenniel, illustration for ‘The Queen’s Croquet-Ground’, Lewis Carroll — 22. Omnipotence

The first six images in this section present more-or-less traditional images of monsters, such as the famous Jabberwocky from Through the Looking-Glass. But the monstrous is an inherently unstable category. Etymologically, ‘monstrous’ means ‘unnatural’, but the monster in Dalziel’s illustration of Charles Kingsley’s Madam How and Lady Why is all about nature and the natural (no. 2 – see gallery above). Here, the dragon is a benign figure for a sublime glacier, and Kingsley’s text explores the natural world from fantastical, religious and scientific perspectives. Image four is from a cartoon by Alfred Thompson, called ‘Lecture on Bogueys’. The cartoon is a spoof series of professorial notes for a Christmas lecture, taking a comic look at the monstrous. The image was published with the following caption:

Third lecture. – On Dreamland and its Bogueys. Illustration: The Boguey one is likely to meet with after Lobster Salad. Whether suggested by the lady in the lobster’s head. Difference of nature in Dream-Bogueys produced severally by Pork and Toasted Cheese. Comic song – ‘Oh, would I could recall the past. (From Tom Hood, ed., The 5 Alls, c. 1866).

Following these monsters are five wood engravings that explore a range of modern masculine heroes, from different walks of life. These include three rescue scenes (nos. 7, 9 and 10), as well as an imperialist hunting scene (no. 11); hunting is not usually seen as heroic today, but it was for many Victorian readers. There is also a curious commercial illustration (no. 8) made for an unidentified client. Perhaps an advertisement for a Victorian fire extinguisher, or some kind of fire service, it is interesting to see the different way the masculine figure is represented here. In all the other images, we see a heroic human; here, we see an operative, and the machine has become the rescuer.

Other notable subjects in this section include images of comic chivalry (nos. 12–15) and images of vulnerable monsters (nos. 19–20). Considering that women frequently display heroic qualities in Victorian novels and other literature, it is striking that the heroic female does not play a prominent visual role in the wood engravings Dalziel made in these years. There are some images that celebrate feminine courage, however (nos. 16 and 18). And the illustration after Arthur Hughes from George Macdonald’s At the Back of the North Wind (no. 17) is an interesting example of the female body made strange and occupying a liminal role between hero and monster.

Bethan Stevens

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