People of Dickens - Victorian Portfolio of Six Prints

Artist: Charles Dana Gibson
Medium: Etchings on Paper
Size: 9" x 15" (240mm x 390mm)
Date: 1897
Code: GibsonPODCaleb

This is a collection of prints.

People Of Dickens is a folio of six large Victorian gravure prints and copper plate engravings by Charles Dana Gibson, published 1897 by R.H. Russell, New York.

Gibson, the creator of the "Gibson Girl", the iconic depictions that are probably the first image type that springs to mind when one tries to picture a turn-of-the-20th-century young beauty, was extremely popular at the turn of the 20th century and published many book format collections of his mostly humorous work for Colliers, Scribners and other publications.

These are high-quality large prints - the way the ink lays on the paper in some of the areas where the lines are thick and bold, they look like they could actually be the sketches themselves.

* Scrooge A Christmas Carol
* Dick Swiveller and the Marchioness The Old Curiosity Shop
* Mr. Pickwick Delivering His Famous Oration Pickwick Papers
* Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, David and Traddles David Copperfield
* Caleb Plummer and Daughter The Cricket On The Hearth
* Tom Pinch and His Sister Martin Chuzzlewit

Note all six illustrations and their respective title pages are offered plus the front title page. Originally there was a ribbon-bound burlap covered card cover which is not included.

• Artist Biography
  Charles Dana Gibson (14 September 1867 - 23 December 1944)
  Charles Dana Gibson was an American illustrator. He was best known for his creation of the "Gibson Girl", an iconic representation of the beautiful and independent American woman at the turn of the 20th century.
  
  His wife, Irene Langhorne, and her four sisters inspired his images. He published his illustrations in Life magazine and other major national publications for more than 30 years, becoming editor in 1918 and later owner of the general interest magazine.
  
  Gibson was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts on September 14, 1867. He was a son of Josephine Elizabeth (née Lovett) and Charles DeWolf Gibson. He had five siblings and was a descendant of U.S. Senators James DeWolf and William Bradford.
  
  A talented youth with an early interest in art, Gibson was enrolled by his parents in New York City's Art Students League, where he studied for two years.
  
  Peddling his pen-and-ink sketches, Gibson sold his first work in 1886 to Life magazine, founded by John Ames Mitchell and Andrew Miller. It featured general interest articles, humor, illustrations, and cartoons. His works appeared weekly in the popular national magazine for more than 30 years. He quickly built a wider reputation, with his drawings being featured in all the major New York publications, including Harper's Weekly, Scribners and Collier's. His illustrated books include the 1898 editions of Anthony Hope's The Prisoner of Zenda and its sequel Rupert of Hentzau as well as Richard Harding Davis' Gallegher and Other Stories.
  
  His development of the "Gibson Girl" from 1890 and her nationwide fame brought Gibson respect and wealth.
  
  His wife and her elegant Langhorne sisters also inspired his famous Gibson Girls, who became iconic images in early 20th-century society. Their dynamic and resourceful father Chiswell Langhorne had his wealth severely reduced by the Civil War, but by the late 19th century, he had rebuilt his fortune on tobacco auctioneering and the railroad industry.
  
  After the death of John Ames Mitchell in 1918, Gibson became editor of Life and later took over as owner of the magazine. As the popularity of the Gibson Girl faded after World War I, Gibson took to working in oils for his own pleasure. In 1918, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member and became a full Academician in 1932.
  
  He retired in 1936, the same year Scribner's published his biography, Portrait of an Era as Drawn by C. D. Gibson: A Biography by Fairfax Downey. At the time of his death in 1944, he was considered "the most celebrated pen-and-ink artist of his time as well as a painter applauded by the critics of his later work."