Great unwashed
Sir: I read with appreciation-. Mr Oliver Warner's excellent review of Kellow Ches- ney's The Victorian Underworld (11 July).
But why, oh why does he say that Dore was 'a master of that harsh medium, the steel engraving'? As a former Keeper of Prints and Engravings at the v and A, I should like to point out that Dore never made a steel engraving in his life, or indeed, so far as am aware, an engraving of any kind. He made a pen and wash drawing which was translated by very competent craftsmen in terms of wood-engraving.
In the strict sense there is no such thing
as a steel engraving. No sane man would engrave on steel. What the engraver did was to engrave on copper, and then have his plate covered by a very thin layer of steel. This made possible a larger edition. But all this has nothing whatever to do with Gustave Dore.
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