Satire on Stone: The Political Cartoons of Joseph Keppler

USA: University of Illinois Press. Very Good/Very Good. 1988. First Edition, First Impression. Hard Cover. 4to 23.5 x 3.8 x 29.2 cm 0252014979 With a Foreword by Jim Boman. Dust jacket complete, unclipped. Original cloth boards with bright gilt titling on spine. Previous owner's details on ffep.170 colour and black-and-white cartoons. 465 pages clean and tight. Gathers political cartoons by the nineteenth century American satirist, briefly traces Keppler's career, and discusses the background of his work. Joseph Keppler (1838-94), popular artist, satirist, and commentator, entertained a generation of Americans with his colorful and witty political cartoons. A major event in publishing, this first biography of Keppler includes more than 170 colour and black-and-white cartoons, most of which have not been seen in print since they first appeared. Richard West preserves Keppler's artistic achievement as America's leading cartoonist of the 1880s with this intriguing story of the Viennese-born painter, stage star, and cartoonist. As art director, chief cartoonist, and co-publisher of Puck, America's first successful humor magazine, Keppler created a new type of American cartoon-satiric and full of caricatures. "Exhibiting an actor's sense of pacing and flair, Keppler opened the curtains of his stage to an audience not yet savvy to the cartoonist's dramatic devices. And he played that crowd for all it was worth. Color, lighting, costumes! Elephants, presidents, paupers! Apocalypse, redemption, a cast of thousands! His colorful bazaars in the pages of Puck must have hit his readers full-force between the eyes. Never before, nor probably since, has the art of political cartooning enjoyed so luscious and pregnant a moment.... This book has come along to celebrate that moment in time when this art form was at its grandiose, garrulous, and festive peak. And to celebrate the genius of the greatest visual showman the young art would produce-Joseph Keppler." - Jim Borgman, from the foreword. "As much a giant in the genesis of American political cartoon art as Thomas Nast, Joseph Keppler of Puck has been shamefully neglected by scholars for nearly a century. With this splendid volume, combining an informative biography with a rich representation of Keppler's cartoon art, Richard Samuel West has redressed an injustice and earned the gratitude of students of American political culture." - Roger A. Fischer, author of Tippecanoe and Trinkets Too: The Material Culture of American Presidential Campaigns, 1828-198. .