The Complete Illustrative Work of Thomas Bewick

摘要

Nigel Tattersfield is known, quite rightly, as the leading scholar in Bewick studies, having already published Bookplates by Beilby and Bewick (1999) and John Bewick - Engraver on Wood 1J60-1J95 (2001). Now we have before us this crowning achievement of many years of painstaking and meticulous research, in three handsome volumes.It is true to say that books illustrated by Bewick and members of his extensive workshop were much collected in his own lifetime - he himself had little time for such mania, scornfully labelling these energetic collectors as 'poor bibliomanists' and 'book mad gentry'. Yet, until the appearance of this work, the Bewick enthusiast had been less than well served by previous attempts to chart a logical path through a bibliographical jungle strewn with deep chasms and directions leading to cul-de-sacs.