Gustave Dore in Hell?

Sean Michael Robinson:

Greetings!

On Monday afternoon I received a very special package from Dan Malan, the world's foremost expert on Gustave Dore, and, as far as I know, his only English-language biographer in a century or so (1995's Adrift on Dreams of Splendor) Dan and I (and Dan and Dave!) have been talking periodically about our various overlapping projects and interests, and when I called him last week to talk about the image quality of the various editions of Inferno out there, Dan turned around and made an extremely generous offer that made my search unnecessary. He packed up and mailed to me all 75 illustrated plates from a "parts" edition of the very best printing of Inferno that's ever been.

Parts editions were versions of books sold chapter by chapter, unbound except for a single thread to keep the pages in place. As you can imagine, scanning 75 flat unbound plates is an awful lot easier than attempting to do the same to 75 plates that have been bound in an oversized book that you're trying your hardest not to damage. Other than wearing gloves while I scan to keep from adding skin oils to the paper, this is now a pretty straightforward scanning job. 

I spent the first bit of yesterday morning sorting the images, and scanning the ones I'd be needing first. And ever since then I've been working on the actual production work for Cerebus in Hell? #0, getting it ready as quickly as I'm able so we can get it printed and into your hands. And it looks like, all things remaining the same, I'll be able to get it out sometime tomorrow.

Hence the late post here! Hence the short post.

So rather than taking up any more time here, I'll be updating this post through the day with any closeups of the images I think are particularly striking.

These are truly some amazing images, and it makes the work, tight as the timetable is, a real pleasure.

Until Dore's work, this technique was associated almost exlusively with steel engraving, not wood engraving. But the technology of wood finally made this sharp edge tapered hatching possible, using different types of boxwood that had a harder surface and could maintain detail over a longer run of impressions.

Above—a multiple-generation low-res scan, below replaced by a scan from the page Dan sent me. Notice there appears to be some kind of patch or alteration on the foliage below the roots. The invention of electrotyping gave publishers the ability to reproduce their printing blocks infinitely, ensuring that worn blocks wouldn't have to stay in service. But the lack of international copyright agreements meant that piracy was rampant, and so popular illustrations would often be transferred and re-engraved completely to meet the reading demands of another continent (or in the case of his Bible illustrations, the religious needs of other sects or countries. The blocks could be copied and then the offending details touched out of the surface)

Talk about drawing deep into the page. The head is less than a centimeter across. This is from the first plate of the book (second if you could the portrait of Dante)

Is this not the most metal image that's ever existed? Why exactly has this not been an album cover?

Want a 20th century woodcut style? Magnify a portion of a Dore woodcut a few hundred percent.