Illustration Friday: Electricity

Steampunk, Indiana Jones, my mother, a banana, a saltshaker, Mary Shelley and a ballpoint sketch meet the 1887 volume of Cassels Magazine:

It’s falling apart, but I love that book – there are articles on how to stop roosters crowing and which dental schools will admit women, on breakfast beverages, the season’s fashions (What to Wear: Chit Chat on Dress), meteoric resin, new hansom cabs, lead-lined tea chests, extending ladders (a peculiar fascination with these) and stories with titles such as ‘Vere Thornleigh’s Inheritance; or, “Life’s Fitful Fever” and “A Man of the Name of John” whose elegantly bustled heroines swoon in woodcuts captioned cryptically “I dearly love playing the lady bountiful”, “a well-arranged room” or “the stranger was soon elucidating the mysteries of a political caricature”.

Here is another based on a pencil sketch (the separate image of the hand and gun is my favourite):

And, for a touch of colour, my further adventures in Inkscape (imagine a large clockwork robot to the far right):

(Comments and criticism are as ever welcome).