La narrativa illustrata  fra Ottocento e Novecento
10.13125/2039-6597/5814
Il numero La narrativa illustrata tra Ottocento e Novecento si inserisce nell’ambito degli studi iconotestuali e di cultura visuale. Il volume affronta le scelte editoriali tra Ottocento e Novecento e le loro implicazioni estetiche. I contributi raccolti approfondiscono aspetti teorici e metodologici e analizzano macrotendenze nazionali, ricezione, contaminazioni e influenze nella produzione europea, questioni estetiche relative al rapporto tra parola e immagine. Si intende in questa sede esaminare alcuni casi di studio in una prospettiva teorico-comparativa, con particolare attenzione per alcuni romanzi illustrati di particolare successo, pubblicati in Europa tra Ottocento e Novecento, al fine di evidenziarne la rilevanza per questo campo di studi.
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Beatrice Seligardi
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Between
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The Illustrated Fiction between  19th and 20th Century
Text.Serial.Journal
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Introduction
2023-05-31
2023-05-31
2023-05-31
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i-xviii
1
Beatrice Seligardi
2023/05/31
10.13125/2039-6597/5814
i
University of Sassari
2039-6597
25
visual culture
xviii
The Illustrated Fiction between  19th and 20th Century
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13
           The Illustrated Fiction between
                19th and 20th Century

        Claudia Cao – Giuseppe Carrara – Beatrice Seligardi*



Abstract
      The issue The Illustrated Fiction between the 19th and 20th Century fits into
the fields of the icono-textual and visual studies. It focuses on the publishing
choices in the 19th and 20th centuries and their aesthetic implications. The
contributions collected in this volume discuss both theoretical and method-
ological aspects, especially significant when the authors take part actively
in the drawing process. The papers analyse national and international mac-
ro-trends, matters related to reception, contamination, influences in Euro-
pean production, and aesthetic issues regarding the relationship between
word and image. This volume aims at examining case studies from a theoret-
ical-comparative perspective, focusing on some successful illustrated novels
published in Europe between the 19th and 20th century, in order to highlight
their relevance to the above-mentioned field of studies.

Keywords
        Illustrated novels; illustration; iconotextuality; visual culture.




    *
        This introduction must be considered the result of joint work; in any case
the first part was written by Giuseppe Carrara, the second by Claudia Cao, and the
third by Beatrice Seligardi.

Between, vol. XIII, n. 25 (maggio/May 2023)
issn: 2039-6597
doi: 10.13125/2039-6597/5814
Cao - Carrara - Seligardi, The Illustrated Fiction between 19th and 20th Century




           The Illustrated Fiction between
                19th and 20th Century*

      Claudia Cao – Giuseppe Carrara – Beatrice Seligardi



                                        Introduction

                            Studying illustrated fiction
      In their well-documented Social History of the Media, Asa Briggs and
Peter Burke (2002: 31) note that the rise of a book market “was associated
with the rise of the mechanically reproduced image, and especially of the
‘print’”, adding that “The rise of the print was the most profound change
in visual communication in this whole period, since it made images so
much more widely available than before. Printmaking quickly involved
leading artists of the Renaissance”: very frequently, these images were il-
lustrations, such as Sandro Botticelli’s engravings for The Divine Comedy.
Production, reading and circulation of literary works are also a visual fact:
this is a remark which may be more obvious to book historians than it is
to literary historians; nonetheless, it is worth emphasising. Very often – for
large sections of the population – reading is tantamount to looking.
      The argument applies at all levels of cultural production: from La
Nouvelle Héloïse, which in 1761 was published with illustrations at the be-
hest of Rousseau himself, to the highly successful Penny dreadful, which
came out in richly illustrated albums in Victorian England. It is precisely
the 19th century that represents one of the central moments in this his-
tory: the time when, as Philippe Hamon has written, “L’image devient
mobile et diverse. Et le XIXe siècle littéraire doit donc être considéré
comme un champ de bataille perpétuel mettant aux prises des systèmes et
sous-systèmes de représentation à la fois complémentaires, solidaires et
concurrent» (Hamon 2001: 20). In fact, the number of editorial operations,
connections between writers and illustrators, and jeremiads against this
“genre batârd” (Pelletan 1862: 247) that is the illustrated novel, increased
notably.


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      However, 20th century literary criticism barely acknowledged this phe-
nomenon: in a 1982 study on illustration in English literature, for example,
Edward Hodnett noted that, apart from a few remarkable exceptions, most
of the studies were by experts in printing, book history or graphic arts. The
situation, in the Francophone and Anglophone criticism especially, has
since changed clearly: numerous studies, for instance, have been carried
out on Victorian illustration (to name just a few, Buchanan-Brown 2000;
Maxwell 2002; Goldman and Cooke 2012; Golden 2017, and the list might
even be longer if Dickens and his illustrators – some of whom are also con-
sidered in this issue – are taken into account.)
      A decisive influence has come undoubtedly from the institution of
visual culture as a discipline in its own right – especially the studies on
what we have been calling ‘icon-text’ since the 1990s. Particularly after the
studies by Wagner (1995) and Montandon (1990), the acknowledgment of
the complexity of the relationship between text and image has helped pro-
vide methodological tools which are beneficial to criticism on the illustrated
book, i.e. a specific type of icon-textuality; the field has later been widened
so as to include an extensive diachronic analysis of the relations between the
tradition of the illustrated novel and other mixed forms such as the graph-
ic novel1, or the interference between the illustration of classics and film
adaptations (is it still possible to assess the fortune of Alice in Wonderland
in cinema without considering the obvious connections between Tenniel’s
illustrations and the Disney feature film or Tim Burton’s adaptation?)
      Therefore, a specific field of study began to emerge, which Paul Gold-
man labelled as a “New Academic Discipline” in 2012, in his pursue of a
“visual history of the text” (Ionescu 2011: 8) that takes into account all the
significant aspects of a book layout, and is imbued with the awareness that

           illustrare una storia significa molto più che inserire immagini,
        perché vuol dire scegliere modelli, confrontare le fonti, e, soprattutto,
        comporre un nuovo corpo testuale, che diventa, anche rispetto alla
        sintassi dei capitoli, un organismo più dinamico, grazie agli effetti
        di campo e controcampo con cui si incontrano le illustrazioni finali e
        quelle iniziali dei capitoli. (Brogi 2018: 31)

    Still, in 2014, in one of the (also theoretically) most important essays
on novel illustration in the 18th century, Benoît Tane warned that “La plu-


    1
         See, for example, Brandigi 2013.


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Cao - Carrara - Seligardi, The Illustrated Fiction between 19th and 20th Century



part des spécialistes de littérature évacuent l’image: elle est alors perçue
comme conjoncturelle et étrangère à l’œuvre” (Tane 2014: 23). Tane raised
some of the problems which are crucial to scholars who study illustrated
literature, which are also critical in the papers that this issue of Between
seeks to highlight: the role played by image in shaping works of fiction;
the modification of the relationship between reader and œuvre; the status
of authorship; the role of publishers and the market; the development of
typologies and methods of analysis which are appropriate for the subject
matter; the importance of the technical and material dimensions (which
determines the scope of expressive opportunities, the very nature of illus-
tration as “art contraint”; Martin 2004: 31). A preliminary issue, though, lies
in the definition of what literary illustration is about, within the icono-tex-
tual continuum2.
      This is not as much a definitional punctiliousness as the need to set
the boundaries of an object of study which is elusive and insubordinate
by nature, in order to facilitate its understanding and devise suitable
methods of study. Is it John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men illustrated by
Rébecca Dautremer (2020) still an illustrated novel or does it amount to a
different object? The artist’s personality exceeds Steinbeck’s narrative to
such an extent that a text of barely 100 pages is turned into into a work of
more than 500 plates. Are we still confronted with Steinbeck’s work? Is it
a visual re-writing whose only author is Dautremer? Is this a co-authored
illustrated novel? Any of these might well apply, which is not an isolated
case: artist John Austen considered the novels he illustrated, starting in
the 1920s (from Moll Flanders to David Copperfield to Madame Bovary), as his
own work, expressing his idea of beauty and form.
      Even such brief and cursory preliminary considerations make it clear
that any analytical approach to illustrated novel implies the confrontation
with several problems which are embedded in a complex cultural system
(this is what the authors of the essays collected in here do indeed); these
issues can be summarised without any presumption of exhaustiveness.
First of all, it is a matter of considering how the individual illustrated
works are placed within the icon-textual continuum: in other words, this
is about questioning how the relationship between text and image works
(in the case of illustration, this is not so much a thing as a relationship),
while at the same time acknowledging that illustration in itself lies within
a – changeable, dynamic and ever re-negotiable – rationale by which the


     2
         See Carrara 2021.


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two codes3 share their referent; second, it is about discussing the functions
of images within the ‘rhythm’4 of the text – i.e. the different types of
images (frontispieces, vignettes, fleurons, cul-de-lampe and so on) and, in
particular, their position in the text (what Le Men 1999: 10 calls “critère
de localisation”) – from a necessarily interdisciplinary perspective which
manages to integrate the formal features of illustration with those of verbal
language (this is what Donata Meneghelli does in her contribution on the
frontispieces in Henry James’s New York Edition, for example). Third, it is
about exploring the issues related to authorship, which become decisive
aesthetic questions (and also involve dynamics which are properly
economic and legal, in particular those concerning copyright, as the story
of The Betrothed illustrated by Gonin clearly shows): from the role of the
publisher as commissioner, to the writer-illustrator co-authorship, to
instances of different types of subordination (which also impose the re-
shaping of both text and image: paradoxically, illustration can also act as a
contrainte to the writer), up to cases of double talent or re-appropriation and
quasi-re-writing by artists. These aspects sometimes concern the reception
of works but may also involve genetic criticism on various levels: from
Lewis Carroll expunging a chapter from his Alice for strictly iconographic
reasons (this is Tenniel’s suggestion) to the long sequence of manuscripts
illustrated by their authors themselves (just think of the best-known case
of Kafka’s papers).
      Finally, it is worth mentioning the need to consider these problems
from the perspective of cultural history too: in this perspective, illustration
plays a decisive role in the circulation and fruition of literature, and
sometimes even modifies the way certain translated texts are received by
the target polysystem, in which new illustrations can change radically
the interpretation of the text, reverberating with other visual cultures and
entering a complex network of representations.

          Rise and fall of the illustrated fiction
    between the Eighteenth and the Nineteenth century
     Early 18th-century fiction was not commonly illustrated, except for
decorations and frontispieces: in the British cultural context, it is estimated
that about one-sixth of the published works were illustrated. However,


    3
        See Baetens – Van Gelder 2006.
    4
        See Louvel 2011.


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this figure does not take into full account children’s literature: illustrated
versions were probably published in greater numbers than it is currently
quantifiable, because they were meant for temporary use5 rather than
library collection. Moreover, as publishers’ customary re-usage the same
illustrations in different publications shows, it is commonly acknowledged
that in the first decades of the 18th century the illustration was mainly
conceived as a purely ornamental, rather than essential, part of the text.
The main illustration techniques included carving, aquatint, etching, and –
only in one out of ten case — woodcut6.
      In the first half of the 18th century, the French aristocracy and royal
house had developed expensive experimental technologies in the printing
field, which were also adopted by private typographies and gradually
influenced the European publishing market. This led to a wider diffusion
of a taste for illustrated texts and a sudden increase in the circulation of
lighter and smaller books, also in the case of works that were meant for a
bourgeois audience.
      The advance and prevalence of the bourgeoisie, in fact, combined
with the decrease of printing costs and the increasing mobility of
influential artists and engravers who were able to spread the taste for
illustration throughout the continent, were the factors that led to a wider
diffusion of French trends. In the case of England, for example, engravers
from Netherlands and France – who had arrived for political or religious
reasons – had a decisive impact on the taste of the British public and the
illustration techniques adopted by typographers.
      In the second half of the century more than a dozen English
illustrators were active: the most famous is William Hogarth, to whom we
owe the merit of merging ironically visual narration with the humorous
and satirical literature emerging in England7. Despite its brevity, his A
Harlot’s Progress (1732) is in fact commonly recognised as the first graphic
novel, capable of narrating through images, therefore combining text and
illustration. His stories gave birth to a new genre in which journalistic
information met literary narrative. The first versions of illustrated novels
began to circulate in England especially in magazines; the drawings were
intended mainly for novels which had already been successful. Among
the most renowned works, there were re-editions of books illustrated by


     5
         See Bland 1958.
     6
         See Bland 1958; Levarie 1995.
     7
         See Smolderen 2014.


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artists such as Thomas Stothard, and edited by Charles Lamb on The Nine-
list’s Magazine (1780-1788)8.
       Between the end of the 18th century and the early 19th century, the
rapid innovations in the engraving techniques were crucial to the diffusion
of illustration in popular production; from 1820s, steel replaced copper
and wood also in the production of books9. Let us consider, for instance,
the trend of the publication of literary annals, in vogue between the 1820s
and 1830s: they were real best-sellers containing “poetry, short stories,
dramatic scenes, sheet music, travel accounts, political statements, historical
renderings, classical references, descriptions of Europe, war accounts,
artwork, portraits, lavish bindings, and bevy of famous authors,” and they
introduced “a literary and visual genre that would be both scorned and
embraced by England and beyond” (Harris 2012)10.
       The 1830s are also known for another important turning point in the
relationship between novel and illustration: the publication of The Pickwick
Papers (1836-37) is generally recognised as a crucial moment in the history of
illustrated novel, thanks to a set of factors linked to the increase in literacy,
diffusion of mass culture, new technologies for printing, and serialisation,
which began to replace the traditional issuing in three volumes. However,
it was not the first successful illustrated novel: Scott’s works accompanied
by Cruikshank’s drawings were among the most appreciated. The change
that The Pickwick Papers introduced was the notion of the narration as the
result of the “absolute synergy between the verbal and the iconographic
component,” (Carrara 2021: 130)11, along with the active collaboration
between author and illustrator.
       Therefore, Dickensian production can be considered as emblematic of
the rise and fall of illustrated fiction in the middle of the century12. While
critics commonly recognise two conflicting styles dominating the first two
phases of the history of illustrations – ‘the Cruikshank-Phiz era (1830–55)’,
characterized by more humorous and caricatured representations, and ‘the
Millais era (1855–70)’, characterised by greater realism –, less attention has
been given to the following phase. During the 1870s the same illustrators


    8
        See Leighton – Surridge 2017.
    9
        Victorian Web ma cfr anche altre pagine https://victorianweb.org/graph-
ics/kinds/copper.html
     10
        See also Harris 2015.
     11
        Our translation.
     12
        See Jackson 1981: 12.


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as those who were active in the previous decade were still operating, but
the influence of photographs and advertising, along with the different
expectations of a more sophisticated audience, began to affect the style
of illustration, and the relationship between writers, illustrators and
publishers started to change.
      Since the 1860s, Dickens’s work had been showing the decline of the
importance of illustration, which became evident during the following
decades (he died in 1870): since when Great Expectations was published,
he began paying less attention to the visual side of his work; this is all the
more significant when compared to the collaboration with his illustrators
– George Cruikshank and Hablot K. Browne, known as ‘Phiz’ –, often
resulting in tensions and disagreements due to Dickens’s interference in
the selection of illustrations, choice of titles, or even single details of the
images. The serialised version published in All the Year Round was not
illustrated, by virtue of the interruption of his relations with Browne as
much as the changes in readers’ expectations. From the end of the Fifties,
images began to be considered superfluous given the increasingly educated
and demanding public13, and the new collaboration between Dickens and
Marcus Stone for the volume edition did not produce significant results
either. It is difficult to interpret the reasons for Dickens’s choices, but it
seems plausible that, as Davis proposes, he conceived Great Expectations as
a more modern and autonomous work than the previous novels, and he
tried to avoid simplified interpretations through illustration.
      It was in this cultural context that, almost ten years later, Dickens
conceived his last novel which, as Saverio Tomaiuolo points out in his
contribution “Drawing the (Un)finished Line in The Mystery of Edwin Drood”,
has generated an intense debate for the parallels between the visual opacity
of Collins’s illustrations and the textual opacity of the narration. This is a
case of particular interest due to the openness of this work, which looks to
be integrated by – and stimulates many interpretive possibilities through –
the drawings: compared to what observed in relation to Great Expectations,
Edwin Drood can be defined “a closed textual unity” in which “words and
illustrations leave intact the enigma the title alludes to, since – through
their specific style and semiotic density – they both construct a written
and visual narrative that opens itself to multiple readings.” (Tomaiuolo)
With reference to Dickens’s reception in Italy in the same years, and in
particular the illustrated edition of Memorie di Davide Copperfield published


       13
            See Davis 1984: 139. See also Cohen 1980.


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by Treves (1868-69), in her essay “Tears and middle-class decorum in the
iconotext of the first Italian edition of David Copperfield”, Eleonora Gallitelli
notes the “different iconotexts in the presentation of the characters, […]
especially […] the female characters, who, in the Italian edition, invariably
appear as daughters, mothers, wives and aunts, maids and orphans, who
may sometimes be mistreated or tearful but are never shown as ‘fallen
women’” (Gallitelli). This contribution ascribes the different treatment of
female figures to the intention of emphasising “a moralising tone at the
expense of irony and humour” (Gallitelli).
      The Italian illustrated novel in the 19th century and its close link with
the English production are among the pivotal points raised by Alejandro
Patat in his essay “Rovani e il rapporto inter-iconico con Gli ultimi giorni
di Pompei”, in which he focuses on the novels Cento anni (1868-69) by
Rovani and The Last Days of Pompeii by Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1870). After
introducing the Italian public’s inclination for historical settings, and the
dense intertextual network generated by Rovani’s text, the contribution
focuses on the “inter-iconic relationship” between the illustrated edition
of Cento anni and Bulwer-Lytton’s novel. Patat aims at analysing their
relationship with history and the illustrative strategies adopted to avoid
both the effect of musealisation and idealisation of the past.
      As for the French context, in the contribution titled “Illustrated
itineraries in Corinne ou l’Italie by Madame de Staël”, Valentina Monateri
analyses the 1853 Plon Frères edition by Victor Lecou, aiming to investigate
to what extent the iconotextual dimension of the work makes it possible to
“enlight its cultural, political and conflictual stratifications.” (Monateri)14
The essay examines the way in which, in the central chapters of the work,
the “materialization and […] the visualization of the protagonists’ romantic,
cultural, political itinerary” (Monateri)15 assumes critical relevance with
respect to the importance of travel literature’s visual dimension.
      The endpoint of this investigation of the 19th century fiction is the first
French edition of Zola’s Assommoir, examined in Nicole Siri’s contribution
“The First Illustrated Edition of L’Assommoir (Marpon-Flammarion, 1878):
Writing and Drawing the Time of Industrial Capitalism”. The essay
concentrates on the most experimental illustrations in order to explore
their relationship with the impressionist aesthetics, so as to “identify [...]
the formal means through which illustrations and narration respectively


    14
         Our translation.
    15
         Our translation.


                                                                                     ix
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realise the […] mutation of lived time,” (Siri)16 which took place between
the 1860s and 1880s after the Second Industrial Revolution.

    Illustration and New Media in the 19th and 20th Century
      Important changes affected the mediascape in the second half of
the 19th century; and, during the so-called fin de siècle, they got remark-
able. First photography, then cinema had disruptive effects in the field
of visual arts, as well as the literary field, which led to controversial re-
actions: the harsh criticism of photography as a medium expressed by
Balzac and Baudelaire (who had their photographic portraits made by the
most important Parisian photographer of the time, Nadar nonetheless) is
a memorable example; later, Pirandello was so vocal about the seventh art
that he wrote a novel, Shoot! The Notebooks of Serafino Gubbio, which was a
thorough accusation against the alienation caused by cinematography; his
text, though, became an essential reading for scholars of the interaction
between cinema and literature. As for the illustration, the progressive in-
clusion of photos in it (including stills and photos taken on the set of film
adaptations) strengthened the inter-media and transmedia connections.
Beside its theoretical implications, exchanges and intersections of evolv-
ing cultural industries were affected too, with far-reaching consequences
on the cultural field, canonisation processes, and the parallel formation of
specific audiences.
      The inclusion of photography in the realm of illustration raises some
questions, hinging on the allegedly referential foundations of the photo-
graphic medium: if we think of illustration as something based on a «logic
of identity, that is, a close referential proximity between the scene being
narrated and the one being photographed» (Carrara 2021: 141, my trans-
lation), using photography-as-illustration impacts on the relationship be-
tween the fictional world and its possible realemes. On the one hand, it
might blur the boundaries between the two levels, thereby inducing an
immersive illusion of sort in readers which might influence the ‘real world’
too, leading, for instance, to literary tourism. On the other hand, it might
translate into an increasing “estrangement factor” for both media (word
and image), thus producing a sort of critical distance which may also sug-
gest a meta-critical reflection on the poetics of the authorship involved.
      When dealing with photography-as-illustration, another theoretical


     16
          Our translation.


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issue concerns the extent to which this phenomenon may overlap, or dif-
ferentiate from, the other taxonomies formulated in the fields of literary
theory and visual studies. How does the relationship enabled by illustra-
tion differ from the ones generally defined as ‘iconotextual’ or ‘phototex-
tual’?17 While the distinction between iconotexts and illustration based on
their greater or lesser consistency between images and text (Carrara 2021)
is a first step to be taken, the general impression is that most of the en-
tre-deux-siècles occurrences outline a liminal condition, where the degree
of hermeneutic variability – as related to the different kinds of authorship,
readership and cultural industries involved – should be taken into due
account.
      This liminality calls into question the relationship which, in the case
of 20th-century illustrated texts, often arises between the different creative
industries and the targetisation of different audiences, in terms of biblio-
mania, children’s literature and popular culture: the authorial and/or ed-
itorial aim to reach a specific target often affects significantly the way in
which the illustrations are conceived and included, as for both content and
layout – the latter being an aspect that should never be underestimated in
the analysis of texts combined with images.
      The invention of cinema and the development of a related industry
since the early decades of the 20th century interact with the publishing mar-
ket and the morphology of illustrated texts. Film adaptation, in the Holly-
wood industry and beyond, implies the inclusion of film stills in the new
editions of the original literary work. This ‘rebound effect’ of sort is also
often related to film photographs made for advertising purposes: these
are pre-existing images created specifically to capture the attention of a
potential spectator, in which significant moments of the film have been
cherry-picked pre-emptively. In this case, the analysis of the co-authorship
of an illustrated text highlights the interaction between cultural industries
(publishing and cinema), in a transmedia perspective which takes into ac-
count the reciprocal exchanges between economic structure and cultural
superstructure. 18
      This issue of Between includes several articles focusing on early 20th
century case studies which provide different answers to the aforementioned
questions. In her “Boring postcards. Spaces and places in the photograph-
ic frontispieces to Henry James’s New York Edition”, Donata Meneghelli


    17
         See, for instance, Cometa 2016; Carrara 2017; Carrara 2020; Marfè 2021.
    18
         See Jenkins 2006; Bonifazio 2020.


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raises some theoretical questions related to the publication of James’s com-
plete works, as edited by the author himself between 1907 and 1909 for
Scribner and arranged in several volumes with Alvin Langdon Coburn’s
photos on their frontispieces. The illustrations, supervised by Henry James
himself, who had previously shown a certain scepticism about the new art,
are analysed by Meneghelli within a complex discursive network, which
includes “multiple fractures: a marketing enterprise (which will turn into a
financial failure); a complex exercise in authorship; the construction of a lit-
erary monument reflecting/establishing the canonical status of the author;
an autobiographical journey through one’s experience and writing career;
the foundations of a Jamesian aesthetic.” (Meneghelli) These images are
contrasted with Henry James’s concept of “spatial imagination”, which
permeates the entire project at several textual levels. This helps outline
the continuous exchange between James’s literary theory (particularly, his
definition of the point of view), the use of visual metaphors creating a link
between images, prefaces and captions, and the overlapping of cultural
imagery and novelistic construction.
      The link between illustration and poietic reflection is also the cen-
tre of Viviana Triscari’s article titled “An ‘unheard-of and extraordinary
monomania’. The fantastic illustrations by Alberto Martini for the stories
of Edgar Allan Poe”, which offers an insight on the relationship between
images and short stories. Before literary theory designated the ‘event’ as
the narrative core of the short story, Poe himself had identified the ‘unity
of effect’ as the essence of this literary form. In view of this, Martini seems
to have interpreted the American writer perfectly, by adopting a series of
visual strategies related to that ‘monomania’, or trance, which the artist
shared with Poe’s characters. In the analysis of Martini’s pen drawings for
Poe’s short story The Tell-Tale Heart, probably completed between 1905 and
1911, Triscari underlines the artist’s accurate reading of Poe’s short story,
as shown through the emphasis on the crucial detail of the story – the eye
of the old neighbour – but also through several diegetic choices applied by
Martini. Within the illustration, the gaze looking at the spectator is able to
convey that ‘fantastic’ way echoing the one displayed in the literary work,
as is properly shown by Triscari’s analysis of the point of view in a trans-
media perspective.
      Jan Baetens’s article, titled “Quand l’illustration refait le texte: Banalité
de Léon-Paul Fargue et les ‘compositions’ de Lorris et Parry”, focuses on
the 1930 edition of Banalité (1928), a text by Fargue whose atypical struc-
ture included poems, prose, autobiographical reflections, etc. When André
Malraux, Gallimard’s director, decided to re-publish it, he chose to include


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the photographic ‘compositions’ by the illustrator Fabien Lorry and Roger
Parry, whose photographic career began on that very occasion. Baetens
contextualises the publishing operation within a specific market, that of
rare books, designed for a bibliophile and intellectual public that was still
ill-disposed towards photography. The decision to combine Fargue’s text
with pictures taken by two non-professional photographers moves in an
experimental direction, also prompted by the suggestions of the magazine
Arts et métiers graphiques. The result is one of the most interesting examples
of an avant-garde book, in which the dialogue between text and image, font
and layout, innovates one of the primordial and everlasting forms of the
photographic medium (but also of life-writing), that is, the family album.
      Finally, Valentina Abbatelli’s essay insists on the intersection between
cultural industries, iconographies and readership. The title itself – “From
paper to film: historical and cultural implications of Italian illustrated edi-
tions of Little Women (1908-1945)” – suggests a reflection on the transna-
tional and transmedia nature of illustration. The reception of Louisa May
Alcott’s most famous novel (1868) in Italy in the early 20th century and the
Ventennio Fascista era is investigated by the author through the comparison
of the iconographic – and ideological – aspects of the illustrated editions on
either shores of the Atlantic. Their diachronic evolution is also taken into
account, in light of its film adaptations. The homonymous film directed by
George Cukor (1933), starring Katharine Hepburn as Jo March, becomes a
new intertext – and a new medium – which Italian publishers are confront-
ed with, in a historical period (the second half of the Thirties) in which in-
termedia and popular forms such as photo-novels and cine-novels spread
widely, and different gender models – arising both from school education
and the cinema-star imagery – started to collide.




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Cao - Carrara - Seligardi, The Illustrated Fiction between 19th and 20th Century



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                                         The editors
      Claudia Cao

     Serves as a contract lecturer in English literature at the University of
Cagliari. Her publications pivot around rewritings, adaptations, family
novels, and sisterhood. Among her most recent works, there is the book I
contro-spazi della narrativa di Ian McEwan. Teatri, carceri, giardini e altri luoghi
(Aracne, “Riverrun”, 2022). She is a member of the editorial board of Be-
tween

      Email: claudia.cao@unica.it

      Giuseppe Carrara

      Teaches Criticism and Literary Theory at the University of Milan. He
is the author of the monographs Il chierico rosso e l’avanguardia (Ledizioni,
2018) and Storie a vista. Retorica e poetiche del fototesto (Mimesis, 2020). He
co-edited, with Laura Neri, Teoria della letteratura (Carocci, 2022) and, with
Silvia Cucchi, Erotismo e letteratura. Antologia di scritti militanti (Mucchi,
2022).

      Email: giuseppe.carrara@unimi.it

      Beatrice Seligardi

      Beatrice Seligardi is Junior Assistant Professor (RTDA) in Literary
Criticism and Comparative Literature at the University of Sassari. Her
research interests focus on literary theory and the relationships between
literature and visual studies. She has authored three monographs: Ellissi
dello sguardo. Pathosformeln dell’inespressività femminile dalla cultura visuale
alla letteratura (Morellini, 2018); Finzioni accademiche. Modi e forme del ro-


xvi
                                           Between, vol. XIII, n. 25 (maggio/May 2023)



manzo universitario (Franco Cesati Editore, 2018); Lightfossil. Sentimento del
tempo in fotografia e letteratura (Postmedia Books, 2020). She is part of the
Governing Board of COMPALIT.

     Email: bseligardi@uniss.it




                               The article
     Date sent: --/--/----
     Date accepted: --/--/----
     Date published: 30/05/2023



                       How to cite this article
     Cao, Claudia - Carrara, Giuseppe - Seligardi, Beatrice, “The Illustrat-
ed Fiction between 19th and 20th Century”, Between, XIII.25 (2023): i-xvii,
http://www.betweenjournal.it/




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