More about Richard Barham and his Ingoldsby Legends

The article about The Reverend Richard Harris Barham (December 6th 1788 to June 17th 1845), who wrote his Legends using the pen name Thomas Ingoldsby, introduces and gives a few extracts from the book.

There is a little more to say about the Ingoldsby Legends and their author, and the 180th anniversary of Richard Barham's death is a very suitable occasion for another article.

The Legends
The Legends first appeared as a magazine series in 1837, and they were first published in book form in 1840. 

The Legends were immensely popular in the 19th century. They went to many different editions, often with some variations in the contents, the illustrations, the punctuation and the introductions and prefaces.

The various editions of The Ingoldsby Legends were greatly enhanced by illustrations created by a variety of artists.

The illustrators
The Legends were illustrated by some of the biggest names of the day: George Cruickshank, John Leech, John Tenniel and  Arthur Rackham all produced pictures for the book.  

George Cruikshank illustrated some of the early editions. This is his depiction of the Spectre of Tappington:

Benjamin Disraeli, John Tenniel and Lewis Carroll

Several aspects of Benjamin Disraeli and his life have been described in previous articles.  This one will cover some of the artworks and fictional characters he inspired in two other eminent Victorians.

Disraeli was god’s gift to cartoonists. The famous illustrator John Tenniel depicted him many times in the satirical magazine Punch. I like this one of him dressed as an angel for a fancy dress ball:

Disraeli was also the inspiration for some of Tenniel’s illustrations that Lewis Carroll commissioned for the Alice books.

The Mad Hatter in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland resembles Tenniel’s caricatures of Disraeli:

Tenniel also put Disraeli into one of his illustrations for Alice Through the Looking Glass; the man in the white paper suit in the railway carriage is Dizzy:

Lewis Carroll himself made a reference to Disraeli - and his Reform Bill - with his character Bill the Lizard, whose name is a play on Disraeli’s name:

Carroll also based his Lion and Unicorn characters on Disraeli and his rival and enemy William Ewart Gladstone, the other man in the cartoon above. They fight each other for the crown, just as Gladstone and Disraeli fought for power in Parliament. Gladstone was seen as the Lion and Disraeli as the Unicorn.

Here they are in one of Tenniel’s original illustrations:

The Bill and the White Paper were just political in-jokes, but the pyramid, the lizard, the goat and the beetle sitting next to the goat in the railway carriage make me think of Egypt and David Icke’s references to lizard people.

Then there is the Lion and the Unicorn connection. Lions and unicorns are associated with Leo and Aquarius.

I wonder if Lewis Carroll and John Tenniel were giving us some messages, consciously or unconsciously.

Tenniel’s depiction of Disraeli as the Sphinx: