The Quiver: An Illustrated Magazine For Sunday And General Reading.
Published by Cassell, Petter And Galpin: London 1869
"The Quiver: An Illustrated Magazine for Sunday and General Reading, Vol. IV of the Toned Paper Series, published by Cassell, Petter and Galpin in London in 1869. A substantial mid-Victorian compendium combining serial fiction, short stories, poetry, religious and moral writing, history, travel, natural observation and general-interest articles, The Quiver was one of Cassell's enormously successful popular periodicals. Established earlier in the 1860s with a strongly Christian purpose, it increasingly combined religious instruction with accessible family reading and illustrated fiction, achieving a wide contemporary circulation. Nineteenth-century accounts describe The Quiver as one of Cassell's most popular distinctly religious serials.
This 1869 volume is particularly rich in Victorian literary and artistic content. Its extensive list of contributors includes Mathias Barr, Rev. Canon Bateman, Alice Bond, Eliza Brook, A. Hume Butler, L. Madeline Cabrless, Rev. W. B. Carpenter, Rev. Samuel Cox, Sidney Daryl, Sarah Doudney, William Dowling, William Duthie, G. Manville Fenn, Eleanor A. Hervey, Rev. J. H. Hitchens, W. H. G. Kingston, Rev. George Lowe and others. Among the principal serial works is Esther West, while the enormous alphabetical contents encompass hundreds of stories, essays, poems and religious pieces, including Adventures in the Woods, Ancient Story, Modern Lessons, Christmas Angels, The Game Begins, The Giant's Shoulders, The Old Love, Perils of the Bush, The Sailors, Our Future, Superstitions, Indian, Westminster Abbey and numerous other pieces.
An equally important feature is the volume's extensive Victorian illustration, with the printed list of artists naming Robert Barnes, H. B. Bradley, E. F. Buckman, M. Ellen Edwards, Edith Dunn, J. Fildes, F. A. Fraser, Charles Green, Percy Josling, F. Wilfrid Lawson, C. Morgan, Raphael Newcombe, J. Abbot Pasquier, W. M. Ridley, C. Robinson, William Small, Charles J. Staniland, Louisa Taylor, Francis Walker, J. D. Watson and others. The separate illustrations index runs through a remarkable succession of full-page subjects accompanying the magazine's fiction and articles. The Quiver has an established place in the history of Victorian illustration: Gleeson White specifically discussed the magazine and its employment of notable illustrators during the celebrated 1860s period of British wood-engraved book and periodical illustration.
An especially attractive example in its original period half-leather binding, with burgundy leather spine and corners, elaborate gilt-decorated raised spine compartments and contrasting black leather title label, complemented by striking hand-marbled paper boards. The marbling continues to the pastedowns/endpapers and text-block edges, giving the large volume considerable shelf presence. Of additional provenance interest is the early ownership inscription "Giles Sumsion, Sept 10th 1869", dating ownership to the year of publication. An impressive and very decorative 150+ year-old Victorian volume combining literature, illustration, social history and popular Christianity in a particularly handsome contemporary binding."
