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Wood engraving as ghostwriting the Dalziel Brothers losing one s name and other hazards of the trade.pdf (9.15 MB)

Wood engraving as ghostwriting: the Dalziel Brothers, losing one's name, and other hazards of the trade

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posted on 2023-06-09, 07:45 authored by Bethan StevensBethan Stevens
This paper focuses on the work of the Dalziel Brothers, the foremost wood engraving firm in the Victorian period. It explores the problematics of authorship in an art factory with many employees who all signed ‘Dalziel’. Examining wood engraving formally, theoretically and technically, it proposes ghostwriting as an analogy for the work done by facsimile engravers. Their work is read alongside the literature they illustrated, including Wilkie Collins's After Dark (1856), Anthony Trollope's Orley Farm (1861–1862) and Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass (1871). I investigate the wood engraver's business of artistically producing someone else's lines, and carving other people's signatures. Mechanics, or creation? The line, the autograph, and the signature are powerful elements of the way we understand artistic identity. A wood engraver who signs for someone else is a paradox, undermining assumptions about creative work. Orley Farm, one of Dalziel's most successful illustrated novels, is itself a meditation on the fraudulent act of signing another's name. This paper compares different ‘Dalziel’ signatures, proposing the signature as a kind of self portrait that can help uncover the voices of unknown engraver-employees; it also presents new archival evidence about some of these employees, such as Ann and Mary Byfield from Islington.

Funding

Wood Engraving and the Future of Word-Image Narratives: The Dalziel Family 1839-1893; G1706; AHRC-ARTS & HUMANITIES RESEARCH COUNCIL; AH/M008584/1

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Published version

Journal

Textual Practice

ISSN

0950-236X

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Issue

4

Volume

33

Page range

645-677

Department affiliated with

  • English Publications

Research groups affiliated with

  • Centre for Creative and Critical Thought Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2017-08-31

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2017-08-31

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2017-08-31

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