Images of The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Dublin Core
Title
Images of The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Subject
Images illustrated by Luke Fildes
Description
This artifact is a series of images collected from The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens. The images themselves are provided by the illustrator Luke Fildes. This book is easily accessible now that penguin prints this book for the masses. But what is interesting is that the novel was released in parts in it's earliest editions in the 1870's. Each installation was around four chapters each. With each edition came a batch of images. A reader would read the installation, wait for the next installation, and would keep doing this until they had the whole book. Then, readers could bind the installations together to make one solidified book.
This is a fascinating piece of history on its own, but there is a lesser-known part of this book's history that starts a whole new line of thought. When the book was being printed, the plates that contained the images for the printing press were separate from the text blocks. Phillip Gaskell's 'A new Introduction to Bibliography' said that "Plates for insertion in a book as separate leaves were added when the sheets were gathered in the warehouse" (p. 157). This means that the placement of the images themselves was up to the discretion of the printing house or publisher. What this also means is that the images aren't necessarily in the right place OR the wrong place. As consumers of literature, it would seem that it is our obligation to look at this text (and possibly all texts we read) and ask ourselves if the art we see is published in the order that best tells the narrative. It could be that images vastly change the connotation that we feel towards a scene by moving images a page or two forward or backward. If we were still receiving books like we did early on for Edwin Drood, would we keep the images where the text initially had them? Or would we challenge them and see if there was a better fitting place to insert these images? Just because a printing house places an image at a certain point does not mean it dictates how the text is meant to be read, but it does actively change how a text is read. Can an illustration drastically change how a text is perceived when placed in a different position?
It is really important to look at texts from varying time periods because we can see the similarities and differences to some writing techniques. With this knowledge we now know about Edwin Drood, does this apply to any other texts today? Just because this book was printed in the late 1800's, we can still see what influences cause books today to look and feel the way they do now.
This is a fascinating piece of history on its own, but there is a lesser-known part of this book's history that starts a whole new line of thought. When the book was being printed, the plates that contained the images for the printing press were separate from the text blocks. Phillip Gaskell's 'A new Introduction to Bibliography' said that "Plates for insertion in a book as separate leaves were added when the sheets were gathered in the warehouse" (p. 157). This means that the placement of the images themselves was up to the discretion of the printing house or publisher. What this also means is that the images aren't necessarily in the right place OR the wrong place. As consumers of literature, it would seem that it is our obligation to look at this text (and possibly all texts we read) and ask ourselves if the art we see is published in the order that best tells the narrative. It could be that images vastly change the connotation that we feel towards a scene by moving images a page or two forward or backward. If we were still receiving books like we did early on for Edwin Drood, would we keep the images where the text initially had them? Or would we challenge them and see if there was a better fitting place to insert these images? Just because a printing house places an image at a certain point does not mean it dictates how the text is meant to be read, but it does actively change how a text is read. Can an illustration drastically change how a text is perceived when placed in a different position?
It is really important to look at texts from varying time periods because we can see the similarities and differences to some writing techniques. With this knowledge we now know about Edwin Drood, does this apply to any other texts today? Just because this book was printed in the late 1800's, we can still see what influences cause books today to look and feel the way they do now.
Creator
Luke Fildes
Source
From the text "The Mystery of Edwin Drood"
Publisher
Penguin Books
Date
1870
Contributor
Meredith from the New York Public Library Rare Books Archive for helping with the research for this Item.
Gaskell, Philip. A New Introduction to Bibliography. St. Pauls Bibliographies, 1995.
Gaskell, Philip. A New Introduction to Bibliography. St. Pauls Bibliographies, 1995.
Format
Octavo Book, 12 Images
Language
English
Type
Illustrations
Files
Citation
Luke Fildes, “Images of The Mystery of Edwin Drood,” Manhattan College Omeka , accessed July 3, 2024, https://omeka-pilot.manhattan.edu/items/show/60.