In the evening of the second day of the city trip in London, I had an appointment with cartoon historian Mark Bryant who lives in London. Mark was so kind to take me on a guided tour through The City of London where he lead us to
The Cartoonist pub,
Dr. Johnson's House and
Ye Olde Chechire Cheese, one of the oldest pubs in London. We ended in the
OXO tower, providing us with a brilliant view over the city.
The Cartoonist used to be the pub where cartoonists of the nearby newpapers in Fleet Street met and nowadays it's the official meeting place of the
Cartoonist's Club. Nice to know: The Cartoonist's Club provides a
handy guide for cartoon sightseeing in London on their site.
I asked Mark to bring along a copy of "Napoleontic Wars in Cartoons" (2009, Grub Street, London, ISBN 978-1-906502-27-0). This book is again (just like WWI, WWII, Wars of Empire in Cartoons) a magnificent book that informs us on history in an original way: it is intended primalarly as a pictorial history of the period as seen through the eyes of the cartoonists and caricaturists who lived through it and chronicled the events as they occurred.
The book is divided into chapters, each prefaced with a concise introduction that provides a historical framework for the drawings of that period. Altogether more than 300 cartoons and caricatures from both sides of the conflicts, in coulour and black-and-white, have been skilfully blended to produce a unique visual history.
If you want to buy one of Mark's books, signed by the author,
visit cartoonbooks.co.uk where you can contact the author.
