Associate Professor Richard Scully from the School of Humanities has successfully launched his latest work Eminent Victorian Cartoonists at the Political Cartoon Gallery in London last month.

The three volumes is the first in-depth study of the Victorian form of political cartoons as told through the life stories of proponents.

Volume I explores the origins and development of the form, through the careers of John ‘HB’ Doyle, and John Leech, and Sir John Tenniel at ‘Punch’.

Volume II looks at the little-known rivals to ‘Punch’: Matthew Somerville Morgan, John Proctor, William Henry Boucher, Fred Barnard, and John Gordon Thomson (who worked for ‘Fun’, ‘Judy’, ‘Moonshine’, ‘Will o’ the Wisp’, and ‘Tomahawk’).

And Volume III explores the transformation of cartooning into its modern form – via the life and work of Linley Sambourne, Francis Carruthers Gould – and the afterlife of the Victorian cartoon.

Feedback was overwhelmingly positive with author Shirley Nicholson (A Victorian Household, Shamanism, etc) commenting that Richard “had done a better job on putting the finger on Sambourne’s character than anybody else.”

An Armidale launch will take place in the near future.

Richard is an expert on the history of political cartoons. His work has been published in Europe, North America and Australia.

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