Four Hundred Humorous Illustrations

The collection opens with a vivid portrait of a young artist whose talent was evident before he could even write his name. Born in London in 1817 to a cultured Irish father and a mother linked to scholarly lineage, his early drawings impressed the great sculptor Flaxman, who urged him to follow his own creative bent. School days at Charterhouse introduced him to future literary figures and forged a reputation for a good‑natured, witty eye.

At sixteen he entered medical training, yet his sketchbook never rested, earning him a reputation among peers for clever caricatures of everyday life. By eighteen he had already self‑published a modest folio, and soon abandoned the stethoscope for lithographic stones, hauling them from one publisher to another. His work for the popular sporting paper Bell’s Life placed him alongside Cruikshank and other celebrated humorists, and his love of the hunt began to surface in the lively scenes that would define his later masterpieces.