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This 8-page cautionary cartoon was originally created in England in 1847 by
George Cruikshank, the popular caricaturist (who five years later drew some of the best known illustrations of
Uncle Tom's Cabin for an English reprinting of Stowe's novel). Prints were not protected by
copyright until 1865, however, and Cruikshank is not
credited anywhere in these American-made drawings, or in the temperance text in which they were published as a
kind of frontispiece. There they appear as the work of a Philadelphia
artist who signs himself simply "Pilliner." In one drawing the words "Engraved by" are added to the name, but
comparing these images to Cruikshank's makes it clear that Pilliner also redrew them, in a simpler, cruder
style than Cruikshank's. T.S. Arthur, author of the stories in the volume in which the drawings appear,
was already well
known as a temperance writer though not yet famous as the author of the 19th
century's most frequently produced temperance drama Ten Nights in a
Bar-Room. |
By T[imothy] S[hay] Arthur (Philadelphia: W. A. Leary & Co., 1848) |