Editorial

The facts are really not at all like fish on the fishmonger’s slab. They are like fish swimming
about in a vast and sometimes inaccessible ocean; and what the historian catches will depend,
partly on chance, but mainly on what part of the ocean he chooses to fish in and what tackle
he chooses to use – these two factors being, of course, determined by the kind of fish he
wants to catch. By and large, the historian will get the kind of facts he wants. History means
interpretation.
(Carr 1961)
This second issue of the Journal of Illustration contains articles that are all engaged with the problemsinherent in writing histories – mapping the subject terrain, naming and claiming territories of knowledge, finding the tools to describe the field and interpret it productively. The scholarly scrutiny of what illustration is, its social and cultural significance, and the many forms in which it is manifest is
still relatively new, and it is heartening to see networks emerging from within the humanities as well as art and design faculties,1 under the aegis of ‘print culture’. In the previous issue of the Journal ofIllustration we looked at the ways in which illustration could be seen as participating in a legacy of traditional popular art, rooted in pre-industrial, rural cultures, a functional, craft-based, artisanal
and pragmatic art form. In this issue the idea of illustration is framed by the affordances of print, and ways of understanding the nexus of materiality, knowledge and print production, publishers, writers and audiences within which illustration operates.