When Robert Brown asked Fritz Eichenberg (1901-1990) [left] about his dramatic book illustration, the artist answered,

“Well, it solves, also, my own problems. Some people have to take it to a psychiatrist or a psychoanalyst. I was able to use art as a kind of purifier, or as a kind of a safety valve for my own problems. Because to leave your so-called “native country” and come into a completely new civilization and adjust yourself to it – raise children here – presents a problem which is not insurmountable. But it’s psychologically difficult. You don’t want to be a rebel in your new country. You want to show your gratitude, in a way. You also try to do your share to improve conditions wherever they can be improved by your knowledge, or by your work, or by your contribution to society. And, I think, through my work, I could reach people, which has always been very important to me. …

…Man is a very fragile being. He does his best to corrupt the environment in which he lives. We have now the problems of pollution and nuclear energy and we have gone through a disastrous war. We lost more than the war. We lost our integrity and our standing in the world to a large degree. Whatever I could do as a kind of conciliator coming from the other side I tried to do.

…And since I have been lucky enough to be commissioned to do the imagery accompanying the works of great writers, it makes me a kind of a mediator – a kind of interpreter – a visual interpreter – and has helped many people to read Dostoyevsky who’ve never read Dostoyevsky before. Or the Brontes. Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are probably the most popular books I have done.

–Smithsonian Archives of American Art Oral history interview with Fritz Eichenberg, 1979 May 14-December 7. https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-fritz-eichenberg-12736#overview

St. Toirdealbhach’s Tale (from The Once and Future King)

Thanks to the friendship between former Graphic Arts Curator Dale Roylance and Eichenberg, Princeton holds complete proof sets for most of the wood engravings Eichenberg printed as book illustrations. This includes the unpublished illustrations planned for an edition of T.H. White (1906-1964), The Once and Future King (New York: Collins, 1939)

The Maid and the Unicorn (from The Once and Future King)

Merlyn and Archimedes (from The Once and Future King)

The Boar Hunt (from The Once and Future King)

The Wart and the Hawks (from The Once and Future King)

Don Juan Asmodeus, A Political Lecture on Heads, alias Blockheads!! A Characteristic Poem: Containing the Heads of Derry Down Triangle, the State Jackal … [etc.] Drawn from Craniological Inspection, after the Manner of Doctors Gall and Spurzheim, of Vienna (London: J. Fairburn [1818?]). Graphic Arts Collection Cruik 1815.5. Frontispiece fold out by George Cruikshank.

The anonymous author of this small book [King of the Demons] states his purpose on the title page:

I prophesy on each man’s skull
The heavy, thick, the dark, or dull;
O’ver politics supreme I reign,
Explore the labyrinths of the brain:–
To show how little, great men are
Is Asmodeus constant care!

John Gay (1685–1732). The Beggar’s Opera. 1922.
Act I
Scene 1.
Scene, Peachum’s House.
PEACHUM sitting at a Table with a large Book of Accounts before him.

AIR I.—An old Woman clothed in Gray, &c.

Through all the Employments of Life
Each Neighbour abuses his Brother;
Whore and Rogue they call Husband and Wife:
All Professions be-rogue one another:
The Priest calls the Lawyer a Cheat,
The Lawyer be-knaves the Divine:
And the Statesman, because he’s so great,
Thinks his Trade as honest as mine.

Here are a few of the ten blockheads.

Identified by Dorothy George as Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool (1770-1828), Prime minister 1812 to 1827. Also known as Liverpool. His verse reads in part:
Jack Jenkinson, secure as fate,
A stupid pillar of the State;
Whose father, o’ve the Atlantic wave,
In days of yore both got and gave,
Got places, money, meat, and fuel,
And fed the poor with water gruel;

Isabella Anne Ingram Shepherd, 2nd Marchioness of Hertford (1760-1834), married Francis Ingram Seymour, Viscount Beauchamp, later 2nd Marquess of Hertford.
The lecture goes:
Her sparkling eyes, where Cupids muster,
Outshine the ruby’s polish’d lustre.
Yet crows’ feet, underneath her lashes,
Have mark’d her jolly cheeks with gashes;
And spite of dress, of airs, and pride,
Proclaim the age she fain would hide.

Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh and 2nd Marquess of Londonderry (1769-1822). Better known as Viscount Castlereagh. As Chief Secretary for Ireland (1798-1801) was instrumental in the passage of the Act of Union in 1800, but his attempt to achieve subsequent political emancipation of Roman Catholics was unsuccessful. Pictured with ass’s ears and the motto Eiren-go-bray [Ireland Forever].
His lecture ends:
That head joust now consumed in smoke,
Around our necks has placed a yoke,
Which many a painful year ‘twill take
Either to lighten or to break;
And ages yet unknown to fame,
Shall curse the Irish Statesman’s name.

George Cruikshank (1792-1878), [Cries of London] ([London, Dublin; J. Robins, 1827-29?]). Graphic Arts Collection Cruik 1827.4 (9 pl. by R. Cruikshank, and the remainder by G. Cruikshank). Autograph letter written and signed by G. Cruikshank, to J. Hawkins, esq. June 1850, inserted at beginning. Gift of Richard Waln Meirs, class of 1888

This small volume of Cries of London by Robert and George Cruikshank has no title page. In its place is pasted a letter from George to J. Hawkins:

[George Cruikshank] 48 Mornington Place. June 12th, 1850
Sir. I was in the country when your note arrived here – and since my return I have been expecting any day to be able to call upon you – but have been prevented by a [?pressure] of enjoyments. Shall however visit upon you now in the course of a few days,

Might this be a note to the print collector mentioned in the British Museum database:

John Heywood Hawkins (1802/3-1877). Major British print collector and member of Parliament; of Bignor Park, Sussex. Gave some prints in 1849. Part of collection in sale of prints and drawings, Sotheby’s, 29.iv. -8.v.1850. Hawkins retained many of the rest. In 1854/5 he sold his Netherlandish prints to Colnaghi’s who gave the first refusal to the BM (see 1855,0114.206 to 229, and 1855,0414.231 to 280, purchased for £508 1s). In 1857 he sold his early Italian prints to Colnaghi, who again gave the first refusal to the BM. Carpenter successfully asked the Trustees to purchase 58 for £450 (1858,0417.1571 to 1628). Hawkins sold a number of drawings directly to Sotheby’s in 1861, whence the BM purchased 31. Others of his prints and drawings came to the BM later via other routes.