Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The first illustrated →  magazine to be published in the world, according to Jackson (1885) , was the Penny Magazine of Charles Knight, launched in London in 1832. This publication was promoted by the Society for the Development of Useful Knowledge, of which Knight was a founder. Inspired by encyclopedism, its content mainly concerned “useful knowledge,” namely, information that aimed at educating the public (→  Magazine, History of ). Each issue of the magazine comprised dozens of wood engravings that contributed to the explosion of the market for papers, which, until then, had not been illustrated. The engravings also immediately boosted the publishing industry and the occupation of wood engravers. Engravers trained by Thomas Bewick were responsible for the prevalence of the English model in other countries. The French Magasin pittoresque and the German Pfennig Magazin had to hire English engravers for years before they could train their own. Consequently, they often published illustrations with English topics, which intensely annoyed their readers! The importance of wood engraving increased even more in the second generation of the illustrated press ( Bacot 2006 ), which began with the Illustrated London News in 1842. Doubling the size of the earlier format with the help of newly developed print technologies, this paper's 16 pages included various sizes of illustrations, ... log in or subscribe to read full text