Reviewed by:

• Gems of Art on Paper: Illustrated American Fiction and Poetry, 1785–1885 by Georgia Brady Barnhill
• Amy L. Sopcak-Joseph (bio)

In his memoir Recollections of a Lifetime (1856), author and editor Samuel Griswold Goodrich reflected on how nineteenth-century literary annuals brought more than reading material into American homes: "These charming works scattered the very gems of art far and wide, making the reading mass familiar with the finest specimens of engravings, and not only cultivating an appetite for this species of luxury, but in fact exulting the general standard of taste all over the civilized world" (75). Georgia Brady Barnhill's Gems of Art on Paper sketches the longer history of how illustration techniques developed and merged with literary publishing [End Page 215] from the late eighteenth century through the late nineteenth. As Goodrich indicated, this is not just a story of adding pictures for the sake of breaking up long blocks of type; rather, these "gems" made the careers of artists and increasingly brought art into middle-class American parlors.

Barnhill's study covers a veritable "age of revolutions" in publishing and artistic production made possible by tools like lithographic stones, grease pencils, woodblocks, and chemical washes. Her project begins in the late eighteenth century when readers' access to images was limited. The chapbooks, almanacs, and newspapers that made up the reading material of many Americans contained small images made from woodcuts. Barnhill's focus is on literary publications, but even those contained few images by the 1780s. Americans with greater means purchased illustrated books from England or sometimes domestically published books with carefully engraved reproductions of art. Throughout the nineteenth century, a number of conditions changed: innovators developed new techniques to reproduce images, publishers looked to provide a growing audience of middle-class consumers with illustrated literature, and an increasing number of skilled American artists took up the work. By the time Goodrich penned his reflections, consumers found images to be cheaper and more plentiful. This scholarship is "long overdue," writes Barnhill, because until recently "scholarly interest in historical literary illustration was minimal" (2). Both historians of the book and of literature have largely bypassed the subject; even Gerard Genette set aside illustrations in Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation (Cambridge UP, 1997) because the subject is so vast.

The thing is, nineteenth-century American reviewers and readers thought about books as material objects. As Barnhill shows throughout, reviewers of American literature often evaluated a book's physical attributes (clearly printed engravings, high-quality paper, good type, etc.) in addition to the perceived quality of the ideas and prose. There are few people better positioned to intervene in the conversation than Barnhill. Many scholars have encountered her behind the circulation desk at the American Antiquarian Society or at the various programs and conference panels produced during her tenure as the director of the Center for Historic American Visual Culture (CHAViC). She has long been generous with her time and knowledge of illustration processes, and Gems of Art captures so much of that knowledge in one volume for future reference. This book lies at the intersection of scholarship on literature, art and artists, and history [End Page 216] (or really, various histories: the history of the book but also that of labor and technology).

Gems of Art consists of four lengthy chapters that follow the introduction. They are generally organized chronologically, but there is some overlap as the chapters shift focus from poetry to fiction. The first chapter addresses the development of illustrated poetry from the 1780s through the 1810s to "serve as a baseline against which later [examples] can be compared. … for the most part these books and their illustrations were first steps" (74). Barnhill catalogs a number of volumes of illustrated poetry, providing key information about particularly well-known authors and notable artists. Through these examples, the chapter provides foundational book history knowledge for readers to understand the business environment in which early American printers, authors, and illustrators functioned. A section on engravers reminds us of the multiple layers of skilled labor involved...

审阅者：

• 纸上艺术瑰宝：美国小说和诗歌插图，1785-1885 年，乔治亚·布雷迪·巴恩希尔 (Georgia Brady Barnhill)
• 艾米·L·索普卡克·约瑟夫（简介）

作家兼编辑塞缪尔·格里斯沃尔德·古德里奇 (Samuel Griswold Goodrich)在他的回忆录《一生的回忆》 (1856) 中反思了 19 世纪的文学年鉴如何将阅读材料带入了美国家庭：“这些迷人的作品将艺术的瑰宝散布到四面八方，使阅读大众熟悉最精美的雕刻标本，不仅培养了对这种奢侈品的兴趣，而且实际上对整个文明世界的普遍品味标准感到欣喜”（75）。乔治亚·布雷迪·巴恩希尔 (Georgia Brady Barnhill) 的《纸上艺术宝石》概述了从 18 世纪末到 19 世纪末插图技术如何发展并与文学出版融合的悠久历史[第 215 页] 。正如古德里奇所指出的，这不仅仅是一个为了打破长字体而添加图片的故事；它是一个故事。相反，这些“宝石”成就了艺术家的职业生涯，并越来越多地将艺术带入美国中产阶级的客厅。

巴恩希尔的研究涵盖了出版和艺术生产领域名副其实的“革命时代”，这些工具是通过平版石、油脂铅笔、木刻和化学清洗等工具实现的。她的项目始于十八世纪末，当时读者获取图像的机会受到限制。构成许多美国人阅读材料的小册子、年鉴和报纸都包含木刻制成的小图像。巴恩希尔的重点是文学出版物，但即使是这些出版物，到 1780 年代也很少包含图像。有钱的美国人从英国购买插图书籍，有时也购买国内出版的带有精心雕刻的艺术复制品的书籍。在整个十九世纪，许多条件发生了变化：创新者开发了复制图像的新技术，出版商希望为越来越多的中产阶级消费者提供插图文学，越来越多的熟练美国艺术家开始从事这项工作。当古德里奇写下他的想法时，消费者发现图像更便宜、更丰富。巴恩希尔写道，这项奖学金“早就该了”，因为直到最近“学术界对历史文学插图的兴趣还很少”(2)。书籍史学家和文学史学家都在很大程度上回避了这个主题。甚至杰拉德·热内特（Gerard Genette）在《副文本：解释的阈值》 （Cambridge UP，1997）中也搁置了插图，因为这个主题是如此广泛。

问题是，十九世纪的美国评论家和读者将书籍视为物质对象。正如巴恩希尔自始至终所表明的那样，美国文学评论家除了思想和散文的感知质量之外，还经常评估一本书的物理属性（清晰的版画、高质量的纸张、良好的字体等）。很少有人比巴恩希尔更适合介入谈话。许多学者在美国古物学会的流通台后面或在她担任美国历史视觉文化中心（CHAViC）主任期间举办的各种项目和会议小组中遇到过她。长期以来，她一直慷慨地奉献自己的时间和插画过程知识，《艺术宝石》在一本书中收录了如此多的知识，以供将来参考。本书处于文学、艺术和艺术家以及历史学术研究的交叉点[结束第216页]（或者实际上是各种历史：这本书的历史，还有劳动和技术的历史）。

《艺术宝石》由引言后面的四个冗长章节组成。它们通常按时间顺序组织，但随着章节的重点从诗歌转向小说，会有一些重叠。第一章讨论了从 1780 年代到 1810 年代插图诗歌的发展，“作为后来[例子]可以比较的基线……在很大程度上，这些书籍及其插图是第一步”(74)。巴恩希尔编录了多卷插图诗歌，提供了有关特别知名作家和著名艺术家的关键信息。通过这些例子，本章为读者提供了基础的书籍历史知识，以了解美国早期印刷商、作家和插画家所处的商业环境。关于雕刻师的部分让我们想起了所涉及的多层熟练劳动力......