A group of illustrated sheets from Harper's Weekly, A Journal of Civilization, published in New York. One sheet retains the full masthead, Vol. XXII No. 1146, Saturday December 14, c1878, with the Thomas Nast cartoon on the fall elections and resumption of specie payment below it. The rest are a mix of full-page and double-page wood engravings: a night battle scene, a winter camp, a Thanksgiving dream cartoon of turkeys and children, an interior with a seated woman and two men, a domestic scene with children and flowers, a courting couple in a winter landscape, and a grand church interior crowded for a service.
Harper's Weekly was the most widely read illustrated paper in America, and for four decades it was how the country saw itself. Its wood engravings were cut from drawings by staff artists and freelancers, then printed at speed on the same presses as the text, which is why the paper is thin and the impression is sharp. Thomas Nast worked here for over twenty years and effectively invented the American political cartoon on these pages, along with the Republican elephant and the modern Santa Claus.
Original antique wood engravings, not reproductions, as issued in the paper with letterpress text on the reverse. Single sheets measure about 16 x 11 in (41 x 28 cm); double sheets about 16 x 22 in (41 x 56 cm). Fair condition with age-toning, edge wear and the original centre folds as issued; a few sheets have short edge tears. Please see the photographs, which form part of the description.
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