Anyone adding 19th century titles to their private library will likely have encountered several books illustrated with steel engravings. This illustration process, introduced by Jacob Perkins in 1792 for the production of banknotes, was adapted for book illustration (by others) when Perkins moved to London in 1818. It competed with several other illustrative techniques of the era, including woodcuts and wood engravings (which we reviewed in our posts for 1-6 June 2009). Steel engraving became a particularly popular illustration technique because it
produced plates with sharper, harder, more distinct lines. Also, the harder steel plates produced much longer wearing dies that could strike thousands of copies before they would need any repair or refurbishing engraving. The hardness of steel also allowed for much finer detail than would have been possible under copper which would have quickly deteriorated under the stress. As the nineteenth century began to close, devices such as the ruling machine made even greater detail possible allowing for more exact parallel lines in a very close proximity.
The considerable detail and fineness of line of which this illustrative technique was capable is readily apparent in the following steel engraved image:
All kinds of books were illustrated by this process. One of the most readily available examples in the marketplace is the 1911 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, all of its illustrations being steel engraved. The process was especially good for reproducing portraits, scientific drawings and the like:
As will be clear from the above images, steel engraving often involved quite a few different artists: the artist who drew the original illustration; the artist who engraved the steel plate reproducing the original illustration; the artist who colored the engraved reproduction of the original illustration; and so forth.
Folks adding steel engraved books to their private library should always check to make sure that their books are both textually and illustratively complete. As we have noted in several past posts, there are, regrettably, some booksellers who have no compunction about breaking a book in order to sell the book's illustrations as stand-alone prints. Because of the exquisite detail and fineness of line produced by steel engraving, these types of illustrated books are particularly subject to this heinous practice. Caveat emptor....
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