Reading Pottery: Literature and Transfer-Printed Pottery in the Early Nineteenth Century

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International Journal of Historical Archaeology [jha] pp928-ijha-470058 August 14, 2003 10:32 Style file version Nov 28th, 2002

International Journal of Historical Archaeology, Vol. 7, No. 2, June 2003 (C© 2003)

Reading Pottery: Literature and Transfer-PrintedPottery in the Early Nineteenth Century

Gavin Lucas1

The use of illustrations from literary sources, specifically fiction, on transfer-printed earthenwares in the early nineteenth century is addressed through anexample of a household dump in Buckinghamshire, England. This paper examinessuch ceramics in terms of the nature of fiction and the reading public in Britainduring this period and how the production and consumption of literary ceramics isconnected to the changing perception of fiction and its accompanying illustrations.The paper argues that the use of literary scenes as patterns on transfer-printedvessels had to mediate both changing perceptions of fiction and ideals of thepicturesque and suitable subjects for transfer print patterns.

KEY WORDS: transfer-printed earthenwares; literature; reading; fiction.

INTRODUCTION

In the middle of the nineteenth century, on the northern edge of the markettown of High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, England, a half-century’s worth ofthe accumulated rubbish of a single tenancy was cleared out of sight and dumpedinto a ditch behind a rear garden. Comprising the broken and discarded materialculture of a single family who had occupied the house from the ca. 1780s to the1840s, remains of glassware, ceramics, and a range of other domestic artifactswere retrieved, including a type of transfer-printed earthenware.2 A minimum ofthree plates and a dish from a service, all depicting scenes taken from illustrationsaccompanying Walter Scott’s novels (“Old Mortality” and “Legend of Montrose”)were found, as well as a plate and a dish from Don Quixote and a mug of ThomsonsSeasons, a series of poems originally published in the late 1720s (Figs. 1 and 2).Transfer-printed earthenwares form a major component ceramic assemblages in

1FornleifastofnunIslands, Barugotu 3, 101 Reykjav´ık, Iceland; e-mail: [email protected] a general discussion of the site, see Lucas and Regan (in press).

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Fig. 1. Plate, 18 cm diameter; Davenport Scott’s Illustration Series (Old Mortality).

England from the early nineteenth century onward and a great variety of imagesare depicted on their surfaces (Coysh and Henrywood, 1982, 1989; Roberts, 1998;Samford, 1997). This article addresses the context in which patterns with suchliterary themes were consumed. Simplistically, one could assert that the contem-porary popularity of Scott’s novels, for example, could explain the presence ofsuch artifacts in a middle class assemblage. However, this article attempts a moreintricate analysis to understand a little better how people articulate their identitiesthrough material culture, particularly the social and individual choices surroundingthe purchase and use of tablewares depicting scenes from fiction.3

3Alasdair Brooks has already looked at transfer-printed pottery from the perspective of nationalism andsuggested ways in which nationalistic symbolism on ceramics might be examined from a consumerpoint of view (Brooks, 1999). In another paper (Brooks, 1997), he also focused more specifically onthe theme of the celtic myth and its role in forging identities through invented traditions, and the roleof Scott’s novels played a key part here. I will not really touch on this theme in this paper, especiallyas Brooks has already examined it, although it clearly does need to be recognised as an element inconsumption. Nevertheless, the presence of such ceramics in a Buckinghamshire household may haverather less to do with nationalism as it might if the same assemblage had been found in a Welsh orScottish household. The focus of this paper then, will primarily be in terms of literature and reading,rather than nationalism—though of course the two are closely connected.

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Fig. 2. Dish; Brameld & Co. Don Quixote Series.

The use of transfer-prints on pottery can be seen as part of the broader indus-trialization of pottery manufacture that occurred in the latter half of the eighteenthcentury, pioneered by Josiah Wedgwood (McKendrick, 1983). Mass productionusing specialist, repetitive tasks resulted in serial objects, each identical to theother, an essential quality for the new consumer society which simultaneouslyemerged (Barker, 1999; McKendrick, 1983; Weatherill, 1983). In the first half ofthe nineteenth century, transfer-printed pottery was being offered in a wide vari-ety of patterns, by a large number of potteries centered in Staffordshire. Literaryscenes were just one, and a relatively small proportion at that, in this variety, sowhat would make someone acquire such patterns over others? Over the periodcovered by the tenancy at the High Wycombe site, quite a wide range of transferdesigns was available and the consumption of literary patterns was not accidental.Of all transfer-printed designs at the site, they account for about 8% by MNV or22% by EVE; the remaining patterns are views, predominantly Chinese patterns,with some European (see Table I). Chinese patterns were indeed probably the mostpopular nationwide, at least in the late eighteenth and earlier nineteenth century,so it is perhaps unsurprising they dominate in the Wycombe assemblage, which

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Table I. Occurrence of Patterns on Transfer-Printed Earthenwaresat High Wycombe (ca. 1780–1850)

Patterns MNV % EVE %

Views 76 54.3 459 59.9Chinese 70 50.0 382 49.0

Two Temples 13 9.3 47 6.0Long Bridge 1 0.7 15 1.9Willow 42 30.0 300 38.5Other 14 10.0 20 2.6

European 6 4.3 77 9.9Wild Rose 1 0.7 5 0.6Other 5 3.6 72 9.2

Literature 11 7.9 173 22.2Unidentifiable 53 37.9 147 18.9Total 140 100.0 779 100.0

included Chinese export porcelain (Samford, 1997, pp. 7–9). Given the range ofother available designs, the predominance of literary patterns does reveal the rathermore specific leisure and consumption choices of this household, and shows howsuch material culture can shed light on these choices.

The ceramic assemblage at High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire was relatedto some major changes in the nature of the farmhouse and its gardens in the earlynineteenth century. In the 1830s/1840s, the farm was radically restructured—thehouse was rebuilt in brick as a pastiche double pile dwelling but with a classicGeorgian symmetrical fa¸cade replacing what would have been by then a veryold-fashioned three-cell lobby house. The new house faced outward toward thetown, whereas the earlier house had faced inward to the farmyard, which now wasrefashioned into a formal garden (see Lucas and Regan, in press). Along with thenew architecture was a whole new repertoire of domestic material culture whichhad been all but absent in the previous phase, especially ceramics associated withthe formal consumption of food and drink (i.e. tea and dining services). Everythingin this transformation points to an aspiring tenant farming household that wantedto join the polite society of High Wycombe. Part of these aspirations includedreading and the consumption of books and literature.

Literacy is attested on the site by the presence of slate styli probably usedto teach reading and writing to the household’s children, but it is the literaryillustrations on the ceramics that are perhaps most revealing. The household mayor may not have owned many books, but they had access to a circulating library,and could have been readers of Scott’s novels. In purchasing ceramics with theseliterary references, they were not only articulating their aspirations for certainrefined domestic activities such as tea drinking and dinner parties, but also, perhapsmore importantly, expressed the desire for literature and membership in the stillsmall, if growing, reading population.

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Little documentary evidence is available on the tenants of the High Wycombesite. Beyond the family name—Cox—and the fact that they were fairly successfullocal cattle farmers, we know little else. For our purposes here, it is their choiceof ceramics that is interesting. These choices raise questions on the general useand social meaning of literary scenes on transfer-printed ceramics in the earlynineteenth century and their relationship to literature and reading in society.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE READING PUBLIC: LITERATUREAND SOCIETY 1780–1850

Several scholars have traced the development of literary production and con-sumption in modern society (Altick, 1957; Erickson, 1996; Raven, 1992; Siskin,1998; Sutherland, 1976; Williams, 1961). It is surprisingly difficult to estimate thesize of the reading population in the later eighteenth and early nineteenth century.Using literacy as a baseline measure is of little help; in the first instance, estimatingliteracy is difficult enough and the most common measure has been the ability tosign one’s own name (Schofield, 1968; Cressy, 1993). Estimates suggest a steadyincrease over the eighteenth century but still only half the population of Englandwas literate by the mid-nineteenth century, and it was only in the early twentiethcentury that near total literacy was reached (Altick, 1957, pp. 170–171). However,literacy or ability to read, as Raymond Williams pointed out long ago, does notmean people were reading, at least as a common activity; the reading public hasalways been a much smaller proportion of the literate public (Williams, 1961,pp. 166–167). Although difficult to determine, the best means to assess the extentof the reading public is to examine the nature of literary production, by consideringits scale and availability against background demographics.

Looking at a range of sources from publishers, libraries, and newspaper ad-vertisements, James Raven has demonstrated a steady rise in literary output overthe eighteenth century with a major leap around 1780 (Raven, 1992, pp. 31–41).This trend continued into the nineteenth century, with further increases in the mid-century as production became cheaper. The question remains, however, whetherthe 1780 increase in literary output represented a rise in the number of readers oran increase in consumption by a numerically consistent segment of society. Ravensuggests the latter, primarily because the cost of reading was still prohibitive tothe vast majority of the population; only a quarter of all households in Englandhad sufficient income to afford the purchase or loan of books (Raven, 1992, p. 58).Moreover, the cost of books actually increased over the course of the late eighteenthand early nineteenth century, especially after the Napoleonic wars (Sutherland,1976, p. 11). It was only during the 1830s that costs started to drop. The effects ofmechanized papermaking (1803) and the steam-powered press (1827), graduallypermitted low-cost, high-speed production (Feather, 1990, pp. 6–8). Correspond-ingly, new, cheaper formats were promoted; traditionally novels were published

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in a three-volume format and although this remained the standard well into thenineteenth century, after 1820 reissues of the more popular authors were printedin a one-volume format or serialized in magazines/periodicals or monthly issues(Erickson, 1996, p. 142; Sutherland, 1976).

To get a sense of this new output of cheaper publications, the typical three-volume format novel cost on average 1 guinea per novel in 1815 (Erickson, 1996,p. 150). In 1829, Scott’s publisher Cadell sold a cheap edition at 10s per novel, halfthe price of a normal format.4 Many publishers copied this idea, most successfulwere Colburn and Bentley’s Standard Novels, issued at an even cheaper price of6s per novel (Ericskon, 1996, p. 150). However, such cheap editions were onlyfeasible with the more popular authors, and they never replaced the more expensivethree-volume novel. It was only with the gradual success of serialized fiction inthe 1830s and 1840s and the rise of a new lower middle class reading public thatcheap editions became more common. In the late 1840s and early 1850s, the ParlourNovels and Routledge’s Railways Novels (“yellowbacks”) were being printed andsold at 1 to 2s per novel, and to great success (Altick, 1957, p. 299).

However, the cost of novels rose and fell over the late eighteenth and earlynineteenth century. It needs to be recognized that most readers at this time wouldhave consumed most fiction not by purchasing the books but borrowing them froma library. Public libraries as we know them today were only established in themid-nineteenth century; for the later eighteenth and early nineteenth century, theprivately-owned, circulating library was the chief source for the consumption offiction in England. Circulating libraries emerged in the middle of the eighteenthcentury and were in fact the major purchasers of books. Between 1800 and 1850the usual print run on books was between 500 and 1000 (Erickson, 1996, p. 143), ofwhich about 40% would end up in circulating libraries (Erickson, p. 133). The costof subscribing to these libraries was considerably cheaper than buying books—at an average annual subscription of 2 guineas, Erickson has calculated that thesubscriber would end up paying about 1s 8d per novel, set against 1 guinea to buythe same (Erickson, 1996, p. 150).

Despite the low expense of library subscriptions and serialized fiction, thereading public remained a small segment of the population. Comparing newspaperand magazine sales against population, Raymond Williams estimated that between1 and 3% of the population were active readers in the early nineteenth century,rising to 20% by 1860 (Williams, 1961, p. 168). This may underestimate the truesize of the reading public, but whatever the true numbers, most authors agreethat reading was the preserve of a few, being primarily an upper middle classpursuit in the eighteenth century. It was only over the course of the first half of thenineteenth century that the lower middle classes joined the reading public (Altick,1957, p. 82; Williams, 1961, p. 166). We are so accustomed to reading today thatwe perhaps forget it was a fairly exclusive activity until after the mid-nineteenth

41 guinea= 21 shillings.

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century. Given this exclusivity, we also need to remind ourselves that reading was,because of this, an activity closely bound up with social and cultural politics andthere was a discourse surrounding its practice which we no longer inhabit today.

Novel Writing/Reading: The New Literary Genre and Society

The novel and fiction as we understand them today were invented in the eigh-teenth century (Watt, 1957). The novel represented a new form of writing, a newliterary genre, as represented in the fiction of authors such as Defoe, Richardson,and Fielding. Perhaps more importantly, the novel ultimately came to define theact of writing itself, to form the role model of what writing or literature shouldbe, a process which Siskin calls “novelism” (Siskin, 1998, p. 173). By the 1820s,fiction was the main focus of literary output being both highly fashionable andprofitable. Alongside this fashionable status was a simultaneous unrespectability,and the period, defined in literary studies as Romanticism (ca. 1780–1830), wasessentially a period in which the novel fought for respectability as a new literaryform. It was only by midcentury that fiction was finally tamed or domesticated,and became an acceptable form of literature.

While we are today conscious of the political and dangerous power of writing,this is not something we necessarily associate with fiction. In the late eighteenthand early nineteenth century, the novel was highly ambiguous, and reading it acorrespondingly equivocal pursuit (Siskin, 1998, p. 3; Taylor, 1943). While indi-vidual works of fiction continue to be regarded as dangerous (e.g. D.H. Lawrence’sLady Chatterly’s Loveror more recently, Rushdie’sSatanic Verses), it is the in-dividual work which is under censure today, not fiction as a genre—this is thekey difference to the danger of fiction in the late eighteenth and early nineteenthcentury. One of the main fears of this new genre stemmed from its sheer expansionand popularity, and as early as 1790 there was a major reaction to this prolifera-tion (Raven, 1992, p. 68). A major argument against the “new literature” was thateveryone and anyone wrote it—in other words, it threatened the very artistry ofwriting, lowering it as a cultural activity (Taylor, 1943, p. 16). While critics of thenovel rallied against its corrupting influence and vulgarity, in response, publishersand authors argued for the educational value of fiction (Taylor, p. 151). Its criticscommonly opposed fiction to more edifying literary genres such as travel books orconduct manuals; authors often exploited this by presenting their fiction as “true”stories. Much of the debate was also caught up in gender and class politics; newlyleisured, upper middle class women were major consumers of this new fiction inthe late eighteenth and early nineteenth century and they were seen as particularlyvulnerable to its bad influence (Taylor, 1943, p. 59). The same debate was laterreplayed with class (e.g. servants and reading), as the lower middle and workingclasses consumed fiction from the mid-nineteenth century. Issues of gender andclass are central to this construction of the “danger” of fiction (e.g. Radway, 1991;Lovell, 1987, 1995).

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Table II. Types of Books in an Early Ninetenth Century Lending Library (Based on10 Libraries in Westminster, London After London Statistical Society 1838, Reproduced

in Altick 1957, pp. 217–218)

Type of book No. Volumes

Fiction 1933Novels by Walter Scott and imitators 166Novels by Hook, Lytton, Bulwer etc. 41Novels by Captain Marryat, Cooper, Washington Irving etc. 115Miss Edgeworth and moral and religious novels 49Romances (Castle of Otranto etc.) 76Fashionable Novels 439Novels of lowest character 1008Lord Byron, Smollet, Fielding, etc. 39

Voyages, Travels, History, Biography 136Works of Good Character (Dr. Johnson, Goldsmith, etc.) 27Miscellaneous old books 86Books decidedly bad 10

Despite these debates, the reading public voraciously consumed this newliterature and the novel swiftly became the most popular form of reading (Wiles,1976). The circulating libraries that were the main source for consuming fictionat the time contained mostly novels (typically about 70%; see Table II; Raven,1992, p. 135) and there was a very close relationship between the rise of the noveland rise of these libraries, each sustaining the other (Altick, 1957, pp. 62–63). Itis in the context discussed here, that I now turn back to ceramics and the use ofillustrations from fiction on transfer-printed earthenwares.

FICTION, ILLUSTRATIONS AND EARLY NINETEENTHCENTURY CERAMICS

A survey of recorded patterns in Coysh and Henrywood (1982, 1989) revealsremarkably few scenes derived from literary fiction, all having been produced ina relatively short period, from ca. 1830s to the 1850s (Pulver, 1998a). Table IIIlists all these patterns, with their total possible span of production as well as theirmakers and literary reference, where known. It is clear that Walter Scott’s novelsdominate the pattern output, and while Dickens is present, his lesser prominenceis probably related to the fact that his popularity was perhaps only just developingas production of these patterns ceased.

Table III shows the dominance of Scott’s fiction in the transfer-print reper-toire; at the most general level, the reason for this is undoubtedly the popularityof Scott at the time. Scott’s print runs were typically much larger than normaland his books were early experiments in the mass production of literature. Scott’spublisher, Archibold Constable, was the first to envision inexpensive literatureaccessible to everyone, but it was his successor Robert Cadell who realized this

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Table III. All Patterns Based on Literary Fiction as Recorded in Coysh and Henrywood (1982, 1989)

DatePattern (max range) Makers Source

Aesop’s Fables 1832–1846 Spode/Copeland & 1793 bookGarrett

Doctor Syntax 1815–1834 J & R Clews 1809–1811 magazine or1815–1821 book

Don Quixote 1806–1842 Brameld ?Don Quixote 1815–1834 J & R Clews Smirke & Westall bookDrama series (incl. 1815–1842 J Rogers & Son Smirke & Hamilton, 1801

Shakespeare) Shakespeare bookDrama series (incl. 1836–1849 Pountney & Goldney Smirke & Hamilton, 1801

Shakespeare) Shakespeare bookHeart of Midlothian (Scott) 1834–1841 B. Godwin after Davenports ScottHumphrey’s Clock 1836–1848 Ridgeway, Son & Co. Dickens Old Curiosity

(Dickens) Shop 1840–1841Ivanhoe (Scott) 1843–1884 J Twigg & Bros ?John Gilpin ? ? ? after 1782Lady of the Lake (Scott) 1823–1842 Careys Westall’s illust. of 1810

bookLady of the Lake (Scott) 1820–1840 Dixon, Austin & Co after CareyLittle Red Riding Hood 1843–? ? after childrens book 1843?Pickwick (Dickens) 1830–1890 T. Fell & Co. after Dickens (Phiz) 1836-1837Progress of a Quartern Loaf 1820–? ? after childrens book 1820Scott’s Illustrations 1835–1865 Davenport Robert Cadell’s magnum

opus 1829–1833Thomson’s Seasons 1828–1859 Alcock & Co? after Thomsons poems

1726–1730

vision (Raven, 1992, pp. 146–147). Scott’s works in a collected edition werepublished in the early 1820s and the Waverley novels were reissued in a smalltwo-volume format in 1829 at the cost of 10s each. Twenty thousand copies wereprinted; over Christmas 1829, sales reached 35,000 of the collected edition (Raven,p. 148). Compared against the normal print run of 500–1000 for most other fic-tion at the time, this gives a very clear indication of his popularity. The culturalcorollary of this commercial success was that Scott was the first novelist to es-tablish an acceptable morality for the novel—both with reviewers and readers(Taylor, 1943, p. 97). Scott’s popularity was more than simply a question of printruns, but implicated in the very transformation of fiction from an ambiguous toa domesticated literary genre. Scott’s novels were not simply popular, they weresafe.

While this begins to inform our understanding of the consumption of Scott’sfiction on transfer-printed ceramics, the argument can be taken further. If we look atthe source of the illustrations from Scott’s novels, it is interesting to see from whateditions they derive. A number of potteries produced illustrations from single Scottnovels, includingIvanhoe(Joseph Twigg & Bros., Yorkshire),The Heart of Mid-lothian (Benjamin Godwin, Staffordshire) andThe Lady of the Lake(Thomas &

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John Carey, Staffordshire; Dixon, Austin & Co., Sunderland). Not all the sourceshave been attributed for these patterns, butThe Lady of the Lakepatterns wereboth from an 1810 edition, illustrated by Richard Westall (after his paintings),while theHeart of Midlothiancame from the 1829–1833 Collected Edition, il-lustrated by a variety of artists, including Landseer, Wilkie, and Stone (Gordon,1971, pp. 308–309). It is also the Collected Edition which formed the source forthe most popular of all patterns, “Scott’s Illustration Series” produced by Dav-enport (Staffordshire) which printed a large number of scenes from many of thenovels (Coysh and Henrywood, 1982, 1989; Lockett, 1972). It is the Davenportpatterns that occur at the High Wycombe site. In this respect, it is significant that theengravings from the inexpensive Collected Edition were used rather than earliereditions; it is highly likely that Davenport deliberately used this edition becausethe general public would have been more familiar with its images than with thosefrom earlier, more expensive editions. The broader significance of this is that itis not just Scott’s novels that are being referenced on these ceramics, but Scott’snovels from a particular period, namely the peak of his popularity and acceptabil-ity. The use of Scott’s fiction on earthenwares occurs at the very turning point offiction from a dangerous to a domesticated cultural artifact, and Scott’s fiction andthe illustrations of those later editions of his novels articulated this transition.

Ironically though, the use of novels and their accompanying illustrations wasvery short-lived on transfer-print ceramics. The patterns span, at most, the 30 yearsfrom 1830 to 1860—exactly the period during which the novel was domesticated.This is surely no coincidence. This can be illustrated by the fact that apart froma few, rare patterns referencing early Dickens novels (The Old Curiosty ShopandPickwick Papers), his fiction is not heavily drawn upon in transfer-prints, despitebeing commonly illustrated in book form. Why, though, was it only during thisshort period that literary fiction was used as a source of patterns on transfer-printearthenwares? To help understand this, I think, we need to take a closer look atthe nature of illustrations in literature and popular culture, more generally in thenineteenth century.

Art, Illustration, and Literature

Print imagery was the chief medium for access to art for the middle classes inthe period 1790–1832, and the best illustrations were to be found in books, thosein magazines generally being of lesser quality (Anderson, 1991). The associationbetween illustrations and literature, especially of the nonscientific kind is to someextent prefigured in the work of William Hogarth whose engravings such asTheHarlot’s Progressand Industry and Idlenesswere meant to be read in a similarmanner to literature (Sillars, 1995, pp. 3–6). Published in the mid-late eighteenthcentury, they were conceived of as a series, with a narrative structure, heavily

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symbolic that could be read at many different levels depending on the educationof the reader. They were also sold by subscription, akin to literature of the time.Hogarth’s narrative illustration forms were continued and developed by successorslike Gillray, Rowlandson, and the Cruikshanks. Although such images were readas narratives and they often had accompanying text such as captions and even prosesections, they were first and foremost images.

The use of images to accompany novels was much less well developed—at thebeginning of the nineteenth century almost no novels were illustrated, but by the1820s a practice called “gangerising” (after its main practitioner) had been adoptedwhereby prints were inserted into bound volumes at appropriate points (Sillars,1995, p. 11). Scott’s novels were particularly subject to this practice in the 1820sand even later. However, the chief attribute of these prints were that they were madeup separately to the novel and were often only images of the landscape or settingin which a scene or part of the book takes place. They belong, in style, muchmore to the picturesque engravings of travel books than literary illustrations—indeed, one could suggest that literary illustration as something intricately boundto the narrative structure was never a feature of Scott’s illustrations. This has greatsignificance for understanding their use on pottery.

In contrast to the adjunct picturesque prints illustrating Scott’s work, literaryillustrations became an integral part of the novel form in the 1830s, especiallythrough the work of Charles Dickens and Harrison Ainsworth, both of whomworked closely with illustrators. Significantly, as already mentioned, Dickensis much less represented on transfer-print ceramics than Scott. In the mid-1830sDickens was commissioned to write texts to accompany illustrations by artists suchas George Cruikshank and Robert Seymour, of which thePickwick Papersis per-haps the most well known (Pantazzi, 1994, p. 586; Sillars, 1995, p. 12). This kindof relationship between the author and the artist was quite popular in the earlydecades of the nineteenth century—one of the earliest examples wasTours ofDr. Syntax, a series of illustrations by Thomas Rowlandson for which the writerWilliam Combe produced accompanying verses (Pantazzi, 1994, p. 586). Theseillustrations, in fact, provided the source of a major pattern on earthenwares, the“Dr. Syntax Series” by James & Ralph Clews (Staffordshire) intended primarilyfor the American market (Coysh and Henrywood, 1982, 1989).

In many ways, the text remained subservient to the image in these cases; thischanged in the 1830s with the publication of Ainsworth’sRockwood—the firstnovel whose illustrations were explicitly commissioned. It was Dickens, however,who popularized this, with his third artist collaborator, Hablot Knight Browne(“Phiz”). Essentially, over the course of the 1830s, the “narrative illustration”slowly transformed into the “illustrated novel,” in the strict sense of a novel whoseillustrations form an integral rather than adjunct part of the work. Nevertheless,although the illustrations now took second place to the text, they were still viewedas an essential part of the novel and its reading, and the illustrated novel became

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a major genre in fiction between 1830 and 1850 (Sillars, 1995, p. 16). Such aposition was helped by the development of the steel engraved plate which becamecommon after 1830, and allowed more and better prints to be made than did thewood cuts or copper plates used previously (Feather, 1990, pp. 9–10).

The significance of print imagery increased over the nineteenth century as itbecame a key part of the expansion of magazines and periodicals (Anderson, 1991;Sillars, 1995). A publication like thePenny Magazine(1832–1845) pioneered theproduction of high quality prints, introducing art, natural history, and similarlyeducational images to a mass audience (Anderson, 1991). This coincided with thebeginning of a major expansion in the reading public, especially among the lowermiddle classes, and to some extent, the lower classes. Illustrations were the mainselling point of a new breed of pictorial magazines, which did not necessarilydemand high standards of literacy (Anderson, 1991, p. 2). As more magazineswere established, the educational aspect of their content became marginalized,being replaced by fiction and its accompanying illustrations that now formed thecore element.

Illustrated journalism also was established at this time—Illustrated LondonNewsin 1841 andPuncharound the same time. In 1869, a new magazine,TheGraphic,introduced new standards of illustration, a kind of social realism (called“sixties style”) that contrasted to the caricature sketches formed under the influ-ence of 1830s’ illustrated novels and that dominated magazines until the 1860s(Sillars, 1995, p. 31). The new style was prefigured in the illustrations in HenryMayhew’sLondon Labour and the London Poor(1851), but it was Luke Fildeswho was a leading exponent of this style and provided illustrations for many ofthe journalist magazines. The narrative and moral content of these images in non-fiction magazines clearly shows the blurring of genres that occurred, and in manyways this kind of illustrated social realist journalism provided the basis for laterphotojournalism. However, the broader point to make here is that such imagessoon became translated into painting, and many artworks from the 1860s onwardare simplified narrative paintings with a story which can be read—often with thehelp of the “art critic” (cf. Ruskin; Sillars, 1995, pp. 48–51). From picturesquepaintings converted to engravings and inserted in Scott’s works in the first decadeof the nineteenth century to the narrative and social realist images influencingpainting styles over half a century later, the role of illustration in fiction had beencompletely transformed.

CONCLUSION: READING POTTERY

The use of literary illustrations as a source for transfer-prints on pottery clearlyhas to be read in this context. In concluding, I want to turn back to ceramicsand literary illustrations as source for transfer-print patterns. One of the major

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assumptions I have been making throughout this article is a simple unmediatedconnection between a literary work and the image on a pottery vessel; that thediscussion of reading and literature can be applied straightforwardly to potterywith literary scenes depicted on their surface. But there are many layers here andstages at which this connection could break down. The first is between a novel andan illustration—a painting or engraving that represents a scene from a novel couldstill be read in other ways—intentionally or in ignorance. Second, the reading of aprint hung on a wall or in a book, could be quite different to that of a transfer-printon a plate, even when the images are the same. The media and context in whichthe illustration occurs renders the image open to quite different readings. In theBuckinghamshire example questions such as how regularly did the Cox familydine off these vessels, on what occasions, and were they ever on display, should beasked. Did they own any prints or paintings? In what rooms? Did they own booksor borrow books? Unfortunately, such questions cannot be answered from eitherdocumentary or archaeological sources in this case.

Even if I cannot answer some of the specific questions that can be asked ofthis assemblage, I can still attempt to explore some more general questions aboutreading transfer-print scenes on pottery. First, how are literary scenes “read”?Second, what is the difference between reading such a scene on a plate as opposedto a book—why were plates, cups, tablewares in general, regarded as suitable mediafor the depiction of images, and was there a more general aesthetic of what wasconsidered suitable or not to be the subject of a transfer-print? What exactly doesan imagedoon a plate? At a very coarse level, the industrial-refined earthenwares,particularly the whitewares, easily offered themselves up for illustrations takenfrom books or prints like a blank canvass or piece of paper. Just because they werea suitable medium for this transference does not explain why they should havebeen used in this way. They did, however, possess another quality that they alsoshared, in particular, with books and prints: their serial nature. Just as prints andnovels were usually sold in serial form to produce a collection, so also tablewarescomprised a service that could be bought in any number of sets or table settings. Itis surely no coincidence that a great number of transfer-print patterns taken frombooks (fiction or nonfiction) consisted of a series of different views or scenes thatundoubtedly mimicked the number of serials or parts that made up the book. Theserial nature of table settings lent itself easily to the serial nature of books andprints in this process of translation from one medium to another.

Despite these affinities, one might still ask how similarly such transfer-printedvessels were “read” to the illustrations in books; after all, books were used in quitedifferent contexts to pottery vessels and while broad connections relating to thesocial status and aspirations of the consumer can be made, the more specific detailsof context cannot be ignored. The main clue to understanding this difference comesin the relatively short-lived nature of transfer-print patterns with explicit literaryreferences such as Davenport’s Scott’s Illustration Series. I have already suggested

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that the timing of the adoption of such patterns reflects a change in the status ofthe novel, from a dangerous to an acceptable or safe genre of literature—evena fashionable one. This much I think still holds—and although illustrations innovels were fashionable before the 1830s, this too may be a reflection of the sameprocess. At one level then, one could argue that the period of use of literary sceneson ceramics simply coincides with the peak period of illustrated fiction—i.e. 1830–1850. However, this is not the whole story, indeed in many ways the images onpottery were very conservative and not very representative of what was happeningin book illustration. This is most evident in the fact that Scott and not Dickensformed the main source of ceramic patterns even though it was Dickens’ works,which did far more to promote illustrated fiction. How might one explain thisdisjuncture?

To help understand this, it is important to recall the major difference betweenillustrations in Scott’s books and those in Dickens’; the former were usually in apicturesque style influenced by landscape paintings and engravings, and were of-ten mere add-ins to the book, while in the latter, the influence was more caricatureand narrative-driven. In this respect, the scenes in Scott’s illustrations had muchmore in common with other topographical and tourist images than other novels.Such a conservative choice of literary illustrations would seem to have been pre-ferred by ceramic manufacturers and consumers, because as the illustrated noveldeveloped and illustrations became a much more integral part of the text (as withDickens), their content and style must have rendered them less and less suitable fortransference onto pottery. By 1860, illustrations in books or periodicals requiredthe text, as much as the text worked with the images. Such a relationship betweenimage and text was unsustainable on pottery.

What this suggests, ironically then, is that the production and consumptionof literary images on transfer-printed earthenwares was only successful in so faras such images were relatively independent of their literary reference, or that theliterary reference was at least almost universally known.5 At one extreme, theycould be viewed as simply a picturesque scene like any other and read in thestyle of a traditional landscape painting, while at the other, they could be read asreferencing a novel, or scene in a novel providing the reader was cognisant of thenovel. This flexibility which is evident in early novel illustrations of the 1820sis no longer present by the 1860s when image and text are much more closelyentwined. Moreover, the content of these illustrations in novels had changed, frombeing picturesque views to detailed scenes with characters and events that, oftenwith a dark or moral tone, may not have been deemed suitable for pottery. Indeed,in the wider context of patterns used on pottery this seems quite an importantissue. By far the majority of illustrations used as models for transfer-print designsin the early nineteenth century were either taken from or formed part of the same

5The main patterns chosen for pottery from literature were, apart from Scott, “classics” such asShakespeare, Cervantes or Aesop which would have had wide familiarity.

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Table IV. Major Transfer Pattern Series of Early Ninetenth Century for Which Source Books AreKnown (After Coysh and Henrywood, 1982, 1989)

British views Travel/Foreign views Natural history Literature

Angus Seats Caramanian Botanical Patterns Aesop’s FablesAntique Scenery Arctic Scenery Quadruped Doctor SyntaxBeauties of England and Wales India Zoological Sketches Don QuixoteEnglish City Indian Sporting DramaFlower Medallion Border Ottoman Empire Scott’s IllustrationsFonthill Abbey Byron ViewsGrapevine BorderLarge Scroll BorderLiverpool ViewsLondon ViewsMonk’s RockNorthern SceneryRegent’s Park

figural genre as the more elitist illustrated books and magazines—travel, naturalhistory, and topographical views (Table IV). The fashion of the Grand Tour andmore generally for travel, both in England and abroad, resulted in a growth of traveland topographical books, which as has already been pointed out, were regardedin much more esteem than fiction during the later eighteenth and early nineteenthcentury. The use of such books and their engravings as source material on potteryis therefore unsurprising, similarly for depictions of flora and fauna, taken fromnatural history publications.6

The interesting thing, however, is that while such topographical and naturalhistorical themes dominate the transfer-print ceramic repertoire, this is in inverseproportion to what the public was consuming in terms of print literature and its as-sociated illustrations—namely fiction. It would seem that illustrations on ceramicswere deliberately being aligned with more traditional or conventional books andprints, and moreover, with images that did not require a familiarity with a literarytext but could be “read” independently. One facet of this conservatism in sourceillustrations may also have been the taint of the popular. Manufacturers may havebeen put off using popular fictional illustrations on wares which were typicallyused in refined contexts such as dinner or tea parties, and there is some suggestionthat by the mid-nineteenth century illustrated popular fiction (and journalism) wasseen as slightly vulgar and distinct from elite literature and art. For a brief pe-riod between the 1820s and 1840s, illustration on ceramics associated with novelswas fashionable—novels were no longer ambiguous but socially acceptable, theywere still the preserve of the upper and upper middle classes, and the illustrationschosen could be read as part of the same visual genre as other picturesque andtopographic images. By midcentury, this had all changed—novels were now part

6After 1840, similar genres persisted although in perhaps a more romanticised form, which may reflectthe influence of fiction on such images (Pulver, 1998b).

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of a popular literature, being read by lower middle and upper working classes,and its associated illustrations were creating a whole new genre of narrative-visual culture that was far removed from the dominant patterns on transfer-printedpottery.

The direction in which this paper should now go—but which time and spacedoes not permit—is how images of landscape and the picturesque were read, and inparticular, how they became such a key part of early nineteenth century transfer-printed patterns. The Cox family in Buckinghamshire who purchased and usedDavenport’s “Scott’s Illustrations series” vessels may have chosen them simplybecause of their picturesque scenes rather than their literary reference. But equallythey could have been avid readers of Walter Scott. Without other, particularlydocumentary strands of evidence to work with the material culture, this is a difficult,if not impossible, issue to resolve. Either way, however, their consumption perhapsexpresses nothing more than a general aspiration for fashionable middle classvalues, which included reading, literature, and picturesque images on plates.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author would like to express his thanks to two readers of an earlier draft ofthis paper who provided much needed comment and critique, making me reconsiderpoints in my argument and the structure of the paper among other things. This hasundoubtedly improved the paper but, as ever, all remaining shortfalls are my own.

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Reading Pottery: Literature and Transfer-Printed Pottery in the Early Nineteenth Century

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