by Jane Austen
Read by Mr. Ronald Watkins
Hugh Thomson, one of whose illustrations for 'Pride and Prejudice' is reproduced on this page, was a minor genius who brilliantly achieved the balance between illustrating his author's intentions and creating an independent work of art. His pen-and-ink drawings of English landscape, of animals, of children, and of English types of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries are his most charming achievements. All these qualities are apparent in his illustrations for Jane Austen 's novels. Those for 'Pride and Prejudice' he drew for Messrs. Allen in 1894, and for 'Emma,' 'Sense and Sensibility,' 'Northanger Abbey,' 'Mansfield Park,' and 'Persuasion' in 1896 and 1897 for Macmillans. Hugh Thomson's graceful line, delicate sense of humour, and keen sense of period make his Jane Austen illustrations one of the most artistically satisfactory collaboration between author and artist in English literature. He died at Wandsworth in 1920. Mr. Ronald Watkins continues his reading today from Chapter XLIX.