In this engraving, captioned “The Cat did it!” at least a dozen cats crowd a dining room, knocking over and smashing tableware, breaking windows, tearing laundry, and eating the food. A few cats wield weapons of destruction, including hammers and sticks.

Whimsy

While the illustrations in this collection do not draw from the world of magic and fairies as his fantasy illustrations do, they capture the playful potential of the everyday. Many of these whimsical illustrations evoke animal imagery or capture the frenzy of a cluttered mind. Having contributed illustrations to works by Washington Irving (1783-1859), a popular American short-story author, and Samuel Griswold Goodrich (1793-1860), a renowned American author who wrote children’s stories under the pseudonym of Peter Parley, Cruikshank’s illustrations circulated amongst popular literatures, securing his place as a household name. These sketches invite the reader to laugh, to daydream, and sink deeper into the story’s world.

A wasp watches as a bee struggles in a bird-bath filled with water.

Click on the images below to learn more about each illustration:

A slender man in a suit and glasses rides the trail of a comet. The comet has a face, which looks perturbed as the man grabs its hair to stay aboard. The man’s top hat floats behind him.
A flock of turkeys wearing hats and other miscellaneous accessories ride a carriage drawn by unclothed turkeys. A road sign in the background points to Norfolk (the direction from which the turkeys are leaving) and London (the direction towards which the turkeys are traveling).
Title Page of Volume two of Scenes from the Life of Edward Lascelles, Gent. Under the title, a man rides on the back of a tortoise in the ocean.
In this engraving, captioned “The Cat did it!” at least a dozen cats crowd a dining room, knocking over and smashing tableware, breaking windows, tearing laundry, and eating the food. A few cats wield weapons of destruction, including hammers and sticks.
A woman looks aghast as many miniature people run around, causing havoc and making a mess of her home. Captioned “Nearly ‘Worried to Death’ by the ‘Greatest Plagues of One’s Life.’”