Furniss,_Harry

Furniss, Harry (1854- ), British caricaturist and illustrator, was born at Wexford, Ireland, of English and Scottish parents. He was educated in Dublin, and in his schooldays edited a Schoolboy’s Punch in close imitation of the original. He came to London when he was nineteen, and began to draw for the illustrated papers, being for some years a regular contributor to the Illustrated London News. His first drawing in Punch appeared in 1880, and he joined its staff in 1884. He illustrated Lucy’s “Diary of Toby, M.P.,” in Punch, where his political caricatures became a popular feature. Among his other successes were a series of “Puzzle Heads,” and his annual “Royal Academy guy’d.” In Royal Academy Antics (1890) he published a volume of caricatures of the work of leading artists. He resigned from the staff of Punch in 1894, produced for a short time a weekly comic paper Lika Joko, and in 1898 began a humorous monthly, Fair Game; but these were short-lived. Among the numerous books he illustrated were James Payn’s Talk of the Town, Lewis Carroll’s Sylvie and Bruno, Gilbert à Beckett’s Comic Blackstone, G.E. Farrow’s Wallypug Book, and his own novel, Poverty Bay (1905). Our Joe, his great Fight (1903), was a collection of original cartoons. His volume of reminiscences, Confessions of a Caricaturist (1901), was followed by Harry Furniss at Home (1904). In 1905 he published How to draw in Pen and Ink, and produced the first number of Harry Furniss’s Christmas Annual.

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