Eighteenth-Century Illustration and Literary Material Culture

"This book studies eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century instances of transmediation, concentrating on how the same illustrations were adapted for new media and how they generated novel media constellations and meanings for these images. Focusing on the 'content' of the illustrations and its adaptation within the framework of a new medium, case studies examine the use across different media of illustrations (comprehending both the designs for book illustrations and furniture prints) of three eighteenth-century works: Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1719), Thomson's The Seasons (1730) and Richardson's Pamela (1740). These case studies--which focus on material culture ranging from enamel miniatures and creamware jugs to French fayence and high-end porcelain vases--reveal how visually enhanced material culture not only makes present the literary work, including its characters and storyworld, but how through processes of transmediation changes are introduced to the illustration that affect comprehension of that work"--