John Jackson / W.A. Chatto / G. Bohn:

27) A Treatise on Wood Engraving (with a new chapter on the artists of the present day).

London 1838 / 1861

The revised and supplemented second edition.

In this revised edition of the classic wood engraving history, which first had been published in 1838, Linton’s work is prominently represented. Henry Bohn, who revised the edition, made use of Linton’s interpretation of William Blake’s “Death Door” as frontispiece and mentioned him in the appended chapter about the contemporary state of the art. Nearly thirty years later, Linton would eclipse Chatto & Jackson’s historiography of surface printing with his Masters of Wood Engraving not only in matters of size and reproduction qualities, but also in editorial respect by dividing the old tradition of woodcutting from the new process of wood engraving in a much more distinctive way. The supplemented new chapter of Bohn’s revised edition also introduced a fresh invention of Linton’s colleague Thomas Bolton, which would revolutionize the whole business in the following years, photoxylography. It is assumed that it had inspired Linton to create his own method of transferring images, a technique which he called Kerography. Similar to Blake’s relief etching, this process anticipated the mechanical line block or zinco, which came into common use in the late seventies and made the facsimile - engraving definitely dispensable.