'Sketches',

Bookseller Notes

Comic social commentary in this book of accomplished narrative sketches by a single artist. Some are historical or literary (with a handful of scenes from Shakespeare), but most are in the style of Punch with much incidental contemporary detail of London's coffee shops, markets, theatres, barracks, and homes.The single single vignettes are accompanied by two longer narratives - comic book style - one of the life of Tommy Dutton, the other of Sir Rowland Hash. From different walks of life, the fictional protagonists nonetheless both suffer unrequited love, enlistment, and defection, before ending in domestic bliss. The second - the livelier and more picaresque of the two - also involves a long-lost brother, a jailbreak, and a drunken merman. Each of them 'finds the British army a delusion and a snare', a recurring theme across the sketches, which might suggest something of the artist's own experience.On that topic, it is possible that the W. J. Rawle on the title page is William, one of four sons born to the successful London based engraver Samuel Rawle (17711860). At least one of Rawle's sons (George) followed him into the artistic professions, and William may have done the same.