I worked two chairs with my knife

Artist: Thomas Morten (1836-66)

Engraver: W.J.Linton

1865

Wood engraving

7½ x 5½ inches.

Illustration for Swift’sGulliver’s Travels, p.328

Gulliver has a meaningful conversation with one of the houyhnhnms, shown by Morten in a completely dead-pan way which heightens the comedy and reminds the viewer of questions about Gulliver’s sanity. Interestingly, the yahoos, the human underclass ruled by the houyhnhnms, are never shown, as perhaps too distasteful (or perhaps too close to the degradations of the mid-Victorian proletariat) for middle-class audiences of the time.

[Click on image to enlarge it.]

Scanned image and text by Simon Cooke

[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]