The pictorial press : its origin and progress / by Mason Jackson.

  • Mason Jackson
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The pictorial press : its origin and progress / by Mason Jackson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    It was a happy idea to gather together the principal events of the week, to illustrate them with authentic pictures, and place them before the public in the form of a pictorial newspaper. Considering the great cost of production, and the restrictions under which newspapers lay at that time, to say nothing of the difficulty of bringing out news with ap- propriate illustrations, so that both should be fresh, the Illustrated London Netcs was a bold undertaking. Like most things that are successful, it soon had many imitators, and there are now few large cities in the civilised world that have not their illustrated newspapers. But the full development of illustrated journalism was immediately preceded by many significant symptoms. Several of the then existing newspapers, on the occurrence of any unusual or interesting event, introduced into their pages rough woodcut illustrations. A great fire—a remarkable murder—a fatal balloon ascent—these were the subjects seized upon at the moment to satisfy the public craving for illustrated news. All this seems to have been the working of an impulse or instinct which existed even before the days of newspapers; for, as I shall presently show, attempts were made to illustrate the news of the hour in tracts or ' News- books' before the beginning of regular newspapers in Eng- land. The idea of illustrated journalism may be traced from the earliest years of the seventeenth century to 1842, the date of the first number of the Illustrated London News. The art of wood-engraving had fallen very low in the seventeenth century, and the illustrations to be found in early newspapers are mostly of a very rude description; but they show the existence of a germ which eventually grew into full and flourishing life. The English newspaper, like many other great inventions, was a thing of gradual growth. The news that was sung or recited by wandering ballad-singers at the village'cross, or in the court-yard of the squire's mansion, and the written news- letter furnished to the wealthy aristocracy, were the precur- sors of the early news-books and the periodical sheets of news.
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