George Du Maurier

Born in Paris in 1834, he later became a naturalized British subject and built his reputation as one of the best-known illustrators and cartoonists of the Victorian era. After studying art in Paris and Antwerp, he developed a distinctive style that helped make him a familiar name to readers of Punch, where he worked for many years.

Du Maurier is especially remembered for his fiction as well as his drawings. His novel Trilby was a major success in the 1890s, and the character Svengali became famous far beyond the book itself. He also wrote Peter Ibbetson and The Martian, novels that showed a more imaginative and psychological side than many readers expected from a magazine humorist.

He died in 1896, but his influence carried on in both literature and illustration. He is also often noted as the grandfather of novelist Daphne du Maurier, linking him to another major literary name.