Balzac, Grandville, and the Rise of Book Illustration

Examining how the rise of book illustration affected the historic hegemony of the word, Keri Yousif explores the complex literary and artistic relationship between the novelist Honore de Balzac and the illustrator J. J. Grandville during the French July Monarchy (1830-1848). Both collaborators and rivals, these towering figures struggled for dominance in the Parisian book trade at the height of the Romantic revolution and its immediate aftermath. Both men were social portraitists who collaborated on the influential encyclopedic portrayal of nineteenth-century society, Les FranA ais peints par eux-mA mes. However, their collaboration soon turned competitive with Grandville's publication of Scenes de la vie privee et publique des animaux, a visual parody of Balzac's Scenes de la vie privee. Yousif investigates Balzac's and Grandville's individual and joint artistic productions in terms of