Poison Pens

My favorite political cartoonist died 174 years ago, mad, and possibly a suicide.

James Gillray’s legacy consists of over five hundred satirical prints. They were etched and engraved on copper plates, printed and colored by hand, and sold individually from a London shop. They deal with the events of the fin du dix-huitième siècle, roughly the period covered by Winston Churchill’s Age of Revolution—though the tone is somewhat different.