AN illustrated book is a partnership between author and
artist to which the artist contributes something which is a
pictorial comment on the aut hor's words or an interpreta-
tion of his meaning in another medium. This partnership
works in a number of different ways. In a few rare instances
the author and the artist are identified in a single person
who himself carries out the designs. This union, as in the
case of Blake, can result in a masterpiece comparable with
the great achievements of creative art. But usually the
illustration is the work of another hand, ideally a hand
which itself carries out the design in whatever medium has
been chosen. It is necessary to make this qualification be-
cause throughout the history of illustration there have been
artists who have failed to assimilate one of the several
techniques of graphic art which are suitable to take their
place with printer's type. Then the artist has no control
over the method chosen to reproduce his drawing and he
must depend on the skill of the copyist. If the copyist is an
artist of sensibility and a master of his medium he can
produce an illustration of charm and quality; if he is merely
a professional hack he can deaden and falsify the original
design when he transfers it to the printing surface of wood,
metal or stone. With the introduction of mechanical photo-
graphic processes towards the end of the nineteenth century
the work of the living copyist was eliminated, and pub-
lishers, intoxicated with the power of the camera to give
more or less exact representation of the original, were
content to disregard the essential quality of illustration,

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