I

Approached conceptually, the extra-illustrated edition is the most complete expression of the dialogue between reader and text. Through the addition of plates, texts and annotations in a range of media, it allows an exchange between these two voices to record sensory reception and re-creation in a way that no other form can approach. But this is achieved at some cost. The integrated experience of word and image is displaced by a more analytical, comparative stance, presenting a reading through a continuous visual commentary, and imposing a duty of comparative analysis within a constant shifting of modes – from performance record to character study, from historical to topographical engraving – that repeatedly redefines the text and the stance adopted towards it. These apparently irreconcilable positions are not, however, mutually exclusive, since the diversity of the imagery is constructed from earlier reading experiences. The edition thus functions as a record of idiosyncratic reading that approaches the status of a variorum of visual annotation.

Extra-illustration itself became fashionable after the publication of James Granger’s Biographical History of England in 1765. At its original appearance, before the fashion for adding images to which it gave its name, Granger’s publication was significant because of the social matrix that it imposed. Its series of biographical sketches was divided into ten categories and arranged in historical periods. They began with ‘Class I. Kings, Queens, Princes, Princesses, &c. of the Royal Family’ and moved down through ‘Class V. Commoners who have borne great employments’, ‘Class VI. Men of the robe’, Class IX. Physicians, Poets, and other ingenious persons, who have distinguished themselves by their Writings;’ ‘Class X. Painters, Artificers, Mechanics;’ ‘Class XI. Ladies, and others of the Female Sex, according to their Rank, &c;’ and finally ‘Class XII. Persons of both sexes, chiefly of the lowest Order’ remarkable for ‘only one Circumstance’ such as longevity, criminality or deformity. Each entry was headed by a list of prints, and from this arose the habit of collecting the images and binding them into the volume.