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Title: Phil May
Author: Thorpe, James (1876-1949)
Illustrator: May, Phil [May, Philip William] (1864-1903)
Date of first publication: 1948
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   London: Art and Technics, 1948
   [English Masters of Black-and-White series]
   (first edition)
Date first posted: 20 April 2009
Date last updated: 20 April 2009
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #302

This ebook was produced by: Mark Akrigg & Rnald Lvesque




                 ENGLISH MASTERS OF BLACK-AND-WHITE

                  GENERAL EDITOR: GRAHAM REYNOLDS

            _Deputy Keeper, Victoria and Albert Museum_

1948

GEORGE CRUIKSHANK by Ruari McLean
RICHARD DOYLE by Daria Hambourg
SIR JOHN TENNIEL by Frances Sarzano
E. J. SULLIVAN by James Thorpe
GEORGE DU MAURIER by Derek Pepys Whiteley
PHIL MAY by James Thorpe
THOMAS BEWICK by Graham Reynolds
SIR JOHN MILLAIS by John Gere
AUBREY BEARDSLEY by C. B. Cochran
BARNETT FREEDMAN by Jonathan Mayne
EDWARD BAWDEN by Robert Harling
ERIC FRASER by Alec Davis

1949

HABLT K. BROWNE (_Phiz_) by Nicolas Bentley
JAMES GILLRAY by James Laver
JOHN LEECH by June Rose
GEORGE J. PINWELL by Derek Pepys Whiteley
A. BOYD HOUGHTON by Graham Reynolds
ANTHONY GROSS by Jonathan Mayne




                              PHIL MAY


      [Illustration: An Interior, _By courtesy of W. T. Spencer._]




                  ENGLISH MASTERS OF BLACK-AND-WHITE

                              Phil May

                            JAMES THORPE


[Illustration]

LONDON: ART AND TECHNICS: 1948



_First published 1948 by_
ART AND TECHNICS LTD 58 FRITH STREET LONDON W1
_and printed in Great Britain by_
SHENVAL PRESS LTD LONDON AND HERTFORD




CONTENTS

PART I:  PHIL MAY: THE MAN.
PART II: PHIL MAY: THE DRAUGHTSMAN.
         LIST OF BOOKS ILLUSTRATED BY PHIL MAY.
         THE ILLUSTRATIONS.




THE ILLUSTRATIONS.

_The sources from which they are drawn are as follows:_

An Interior. By courtesy of W. T. Spencer. _Frontispiece_.

PHIL MAY'S ANNUAL, Summer 1892. _London Central Publishing and
Advertising Co_.

A Political Argument. By courtesy of the Committee of the
Leeds City Art Gallery.

PHIL MAY'S ANNUAL, Winter 1892. _Walter Haddon_.

PHIL MAY'S A.B.C. _Leadenhall Press_ 1897.

PHIL MAY'S ANNUAL, Winter 1893. _Walter Haddon_.

PHIL MAY'S ANNUAL, Winter 1894. _Walter Haddon_.

One of a series of pen-and-ink studies, from the original drawing in the
author's collection.

PHIL MAY'S SKETCHBOOK. _Chatto & Windus_ 1895.

Studies of 'Drunks': preliminary sketches for a drawing in punch,
August 10th, 1895. By courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum.

Coster Girl's Head. By courtesy of Carmichael Thomas, Esq..

Skating by Torchlight on the Serpentine. _The Daily Graphic_ 1895.

PHIL MAY'S ANNUAL, Winter 1895. _Walter Haddon_.

PHIL MAY'S GUTTERSNIPES. _Leadenhall Press_ 1896.

'The Travel Diary of Toby, MP.' PUNCH, October 17th, 1896.

EAST LONDON by Walter Besant. _Chatto & Windus_ 1902.

Petticoat Lane, punch almanack. 1898.

Interior of an Italian Church, from the original drawing in the author's
collection.

A French Peasant, 1901, from the original drawing in the author's
collection.

PUNCH, July 30th, 1902.

SKETCHES FROM PUNCH. Punch Office 1903.

A Portrait of Himself, 1894. By courtesy of M. H. Spielmann, Esq.




THE DRAWINGS REPRODUCED


IT IS a difficult matter to make a small and representative selection of
Phil May's drawings. There are so many of them, and they are all so
good. There are many hundreds of others which I should like to have
printed, but the final selection has been made by the editor and
publishers. A select list of works containing illustrations by Phil May
will be found in annex. Acknowledgments are made in each instance to the
kind people who lent me drawings or gave permission for reproduction. To
them all my best thanks. In some few cases it has been impossible,
despite determined efforts, to trace the present owners of copyrights of
published drawings, and I plead humbly for their forgiveness.      J. T.




PART I

PHIL MAY: THE MAN


FIFTY YEARS AGO the name of Phil May, like those of Dan Leno and W. G.
Grace, was a household word even among those who knew nothing of art and
cared less. Artists were generally considered as rather effeminate,
perhaps immoral, unnecessary people, but here was a man of the world
with similar interests to their own, who could make drawings they could
understand easily and whose cheerful humour they could enjoy. So they
took him to their hearts and loved him, without knowing anything of his
greatness.

Yet in 1932, less than thirty years after his death, when I was
collecting material for a short biography, it was necessary to spell his
name to make my questions understood. At a well-known London restaurant,
where he spent much of his time and income, even this aroused no
recollection nor produced any trace or record of his genius. Some years
later a member of the Savage Club, who had dictated an article in which
he had referred to the humour of Phil May, was surprised to find this
translated by his typist into 'Film A'. Although my book should have
been made earlier, soon after his death, I was able, even so late, to
talk with many of his friends and his elder brother Charles and, with
their generous and willing help, to compile some sort of record and
appreciation. By the kindness of the publishers, George G. Harrap and
Co, I am able to use much of that material in this book.

Philip William May--to use his full name--was born at 66 Wallace Street,
New Wortley, a suburb of Leeds, on April 22nd, 1864. Later the family
removed to Hanover Terrace, then to Bentinck Street and afterwards to 15
Kendal Lane. He was the seventh child of a family of eight, the second
of three sons of Philip May. His mother, Sarah Jane, was a daughter of
Eugene Macarthy, a native of Dublin, a graduate of the University and a
theatrical manager. His paternal grandfather was Charles Hughes May, a
landowner and squire of Whittington near Chesterfield, Derbyshire, who
worked the Sneyd Colliery, ran a pack of beagles and amused himself by
making caricatures of his neighbours and acquaintances. One of his sons,
John A. May, had a pottery in Staffordshire and in later years Phil
treasured a china mug, produced by his Uncle John, on which were painted
huntsman, horses, hounds and the family crest.

Among the friends and neighbours of Charles Hughes May was the famous
engineer George Stephenson, who lived at Tapton House, Chesterfield, and
hunted with him. So it came about that the squire's son Philip, brother
of the potter and father of Phil, was apprenticed on January 3rd, 1840,
at the age of seventeen, to the firm of George and Robert Stephenson and
set to work in their drawing office at Newcastle. Philip found the work
uncongenial and had little interest in engineering but occupied his
leisure in watercolour sketching and reading. He borrowed his books from
a lending library and bookshop kept by Eugene Macarthy, then manager of
the Theatre Royal at Newcastle, and presided over by his daughter. Thus
Philip met Sally Macarthy and when he came out of his apprenticeship
they were married. Later Eugene became manager of Drury Lane Theatre,
where he formally received Napoleon III and the Empress Eugenie on their
state visit. Two of his daughters by his first wife were actresses, Mrs
Edward Chamberlain (Ella), wife of a Shakespearian actor, and Agnes, who
married Bob Honnor, lessee of Sadler's Wells Theatre. The Honnors were
prominent in the theatrical and artistic world of London of 1840-1850
and on friendly relations with Charles Dickens, who gave them an
autographed set of his books. Sally lived with this sister for some part
of her early years and there met not only Dickens but George Cruikshank,
Albert Smith, Alfred Crowquill, Samuel Phelps, T. P. Cooke, and other
celebrities.

Happy as was the marriage of Philip and Sally, it was the beginning of
hard times for the young people. Philip was one of those luckless people
for whom nothing goes right. With his share of his father's estate he
set up in London with a Mr Hyam a business of a brass-founder. This
failed and he began again as an agent, working on commission, for some
Sheffield firms. Here again he was unsuccessful and so the sad story
continued. One job after another proved his perseverance and his bad
fortune; but one of these essays, as assistant-manager of an engineering
works at New Wortley, brought him and his family to Leeds. So the
devoted but unfortunate couple struggled on until in 1873, at the age of
fifty, Philip died in circumstances of much distress. Through all their
troubles they remained persistently hopeful and interested in brighter
prospects for their three children, Charles, Philip and Rosie. These
facts are of note because they help to explain how the small seeds of
the artist's ancestry burgeoned later into a glorious galaxy of blossom.
The widow, a devoted and loving mother, lived to the age of eighty-four,
and as a very charming old lady witnessed the triumphs as well as the
tragedy of her distinguished son. She died in 1912.

As the family was left without support, Phil May, who at his father's
death was only nine years old, received very little schooling. He
attended St George's School from 1872 to 1875, Oxford Place School from
1876 to 1877 and Park Lane Board School in 1877, but was sent to work
before he was thirteen. A contemporary has told how he used to make
copies of the drawings in _Punch and Fun_, and while still at school he
won as a prize for drawing a T-square and drawing-board. He was even
then a boy of distinct personality, a natural leader among the others,
full of fun and the zest of life, interesting and lovable, and such a
boy he remained to the end.

After assisting his elder brother Charles in colouring designs for
wall-paper, Phil May's first job was in the solicitor's office of Mr
Percy Middleton. Thence he went to an estate agent's, where he spilt ink
on a plan and left hurriedly, and later dusted pianos in Mr Archibald
Ramsden's music store for half a crown a week. Next he was appointed
time-keeper in an iron-foundry but was discharged because his good
nature would not allow him to report unpunctual workmen. He then became
friendly with the young son of Fred Fox, scene-painter at the Grand
Theatre, Leeds, who allowed him to go behind the scenes, where he helped
to mix the paints and was encouraged to continue to draw. 'I can't
remember a time,' May said in later years, 'when I didn't draw.'
Familiarity with the theatrical performers gradually led him to make
their portraits, which he occasionally sold, at first for a shilling
each. As his skill increased his price rose to five shillings, and some
of these drawings were exhibited in frames at the entrance to the
theatre. They varied in size from quite small sketches to full length
portraits about three feet high and are extraordinarily accomplished
work for an untrained boy in his early teens.

With young Fox and other boys he performed plays of their own
composition, in which he was generally cast for the comedian. Under the
encouragement of the scene-painter he drew copies of costume drawings
for use in the wardrobe room and then was allowed to make designs for
dresses and masks and to play small parts on the stage. A short time
before this, at the age of fourteen, he was invited to do some drawings
for a local weekly comic paper called _The Yorkshire Gossip_, which
unfortunately lasted only for four numbers. He also did some drawings
for another Yorkshire paper, _The Busy Bee_. Both publications have
completely disappeared and there are no records in the files of the
British Museum.

Another of his boyish interests was a desire to become a jockey. In 1879
May joined a touring theatrical company under Fred Stimpson, and was
engaged to play small parts and make six drawings weekly at an inclusive
salary of twelve shillings. He was at this time completely stage-struck
and used to declaim Shakespeare in the style of his idol, Henry Irving.
His first professional appearance was made at the Spa Theatre,
Scarborough, and he remained with the company for about two years. What
his talents may have been as an actor there is now little evidence to
show, but his versatility is indicated by the fact that among the parts
he played were Jack Sheppard, Simon Tappertit in _Barnaby Rudge_,
Francois in _Richelieu_ and the cat in _Dick Whittington_. Late in 1882
he was back in Leeds and designed the dresses for the pantomime,
_Bo-Peep_, at the Grand Theatre, where he also played Fred Storey's part
during the last fortnight of the run. Here he probably met, or at least
saw, many touring actors, among whom were Henry Irving and Wilson
Barrett (lessee of the theatre), both at the time successful London
managers. Whether or not some of these visitors suggested or encouraged
the idea of going to London, he determined to take the journey at the
end of his pantomime run and early in 1883 started for the metropolis
with twenty shillings in his pocket, of which he had to pay fifteen and
sixpence for his fare.

His immediate ambition at this time definitely lay in the direction of
the stage. Robert Honnor of Sadler's Wells had died and his widow,
Phil's aunt, had married another actor, Fred Morton, who had begun with
small parts under Honnor's management and afterwards worked for some
years with the Bancrofts in Tom Robertson's plays. Later he was business
manager at the Haymarket for J. S. Clarke, the American actor. Morton's
opinion of his nephew's prospects was evidently unfavourable, for, after
showing him some of the sights of the great city, he put him on the
train with a ticket back to Leeds. The boy was not readily discouraged,
however, for, like a famous exemplar, he 'turned again', left the train
at the first stop and with true Yorkshire grit walked back to London.

And now he fell on sadly hard times and touched the nadir of his ill
fortunes. Nobody in the theatre or elsewhere had work for him, and for
long he did no better by hawking drawings of stage celebrities and
others. It seemed that he should have stayed in the Leeds train after
all. He could not command any such luxury as a lodging, and slept in the
open, anywhere he could, on the Embankment or under carts in Covent
Garden, and was even reduced to begging his food. This bitter time no
doubt left its mark on his slight physical constitution, and made him
less able to resist the strains imposed on it in later and better times.
But dawn broke at last, and his talent for drawing found him a friend.
This was the proprietor of a photograph shop near Charing Cross, who was
so much impressed by a drawing of Irving, Toole, and Bancroft that he
published it as a print, bearing the date April 21st, 1884--the day
before Phil's twentieth birthday. Although his venture was not a
financial success, this most excellent photographer remained a good
friend to the lad, and often gave him a much-needed meal. But the print,
though it brought no profit to the photographer, was the means of
lifting the artist out of the depths, at any rate temporarily; for it
attracted the notice of a Mr Rising, of the Comedy Theatre. He
introduced May to Lionel Brough, who bought the original drawing of the
three actors, and sent the young artist with an introduction to the
editor of _Society_, a weekly paper for which he did some portraits and
caricatures. In the winter number for 1884 he had a double-page drawing,
'The Seven Ages of Society', containing no less than 178 excellent
portraits. A drawing of Sir (then Mr) Squire Bancroft procured for him
an introduction to Mr William Allison, editor of the recently started
_St Stephen's Review_. Although this was not at that time an illustrated
paper, a Christmas number, to be called _The Coming Paradise_, with
drawings, was being planned, and there was hope that some of May's work
might be utilized. Here, however, disappointment awaited him. The
commission for the illustrations had been already placed, and there was
no job available. May had been led to count on some definite help from
this introduction, and in his weakened state of health the blow was just
enough to turn the scale. He felt himself slipping back into the depths,
and fell ill. Privation and disappointment and now illness made life so
difficult a riddle that there seemed nothing for it but to abandon
London and its hopes and go back to Leeds as best he could.

There he arrived, sick, broken and dispirited. But again the tide turned
and hope revived once more. A telegram arrived from Mr Allison. The
drawings commissioned for _The St Stephen's Review_ had been found on
delivery to be unsatisfactory. Could May do the whole thing afresh in
quick time? He could, and he did. Weak as he was, he shut himself in a
room in a small hotel near the Princess's Theatre and did the whole
thing--cover, cartoons, and other drawings--in a week. These were his
first drawings published in a London paper. For a short time he was
easier; he paid his debts to the landlord and others, and his health
mended. But no more commissions came, no drawings were sold, and the
payment received from The _St Stephen's Review_ was soon exhausted. Once
again he found a friend in the midst of his penury, and, as the Charing
Cross photographer had come to his aid before, Fate provided him with
another benefactor in the landlord of the hotel, a good fellow who
refused to allow him to go or to starve.

With this the last of his bad times passed and the broken dawn began to
open into real daylight. Again it was the kindly Lionel Brough who
befriended him. _Nell Gwynne_ was to be put on at the Avenue Theatre
with three great favourites in the cast--Florence St John, Arthur
Roberts, and Lionel Brough. Charles Alias was to provide the costumes,
and Lionel Brough's suggestion that Phil May should design them was
accepted. Alias was another of the good friends of the struggling
youngster, who showed his grateful affection by the many excellent
portraits of the French costumier which he introduced into later
drawings. The small, dapper figure, the kindly, amused face with black
hair brushed straight back, and the darkly tinted pince-nez will be
found in many of May's theatrical illustrations.

This work for Alias being completed, more orders followed. Again he
contributed political cartoons to the 1884 Christmas number of _The St
Stephen's Review_, and when in the spring of 1885 it was resolved to
turn it into an illustrated paper May was appointed to the staff,
earning thereby a regular eight or ten pounds a week. Political,
theatrical and racing drawings, and even illustrations of ladies'
costumes, formed most of this weekly work. Many of these, done under
severe restrictions of time, were naturally lacking in composition and
design, but, as the work of a youth twenty-one years old, they were all
remarkable for fine portraiture.

The young artist now felt himself established, and with the new
confidence came marriage. Surviving friends still testify to the
unfailing charm and sterling worth of Mrs Phil May, who in circumstances
often difficult and trying was her husband's salvation--so far as was
possible--through the rest of his short life. Her Christian name was
Lilian, and she had previously been married to a Mr Charles Farrer. A
capable and energetic woman, as she always showed herself, she kept a
confectioner's shop opposite the Grand Theatre in Briggate, Leeds, which
Phil and his friends regularly patronized, and it was there the young
couple met. The shop was disposed of, and May and his wife made their
first settlement together in rooms in Bedford Street, Covent Garden, and
here he did his work for _The St Stephen's Review_. Always a hard
worker, he was also contributing portrait caricatures to _The Penny
Illustrated Paper_ and _The Pictorial World_, edited by that good friend
to young artists, John Latey, and was beginning to establish himself as
a regular contributor to the London Press. All his drawings at this time
present a great vivacity and sense of enjoyment, and many were
afterwards reproduced in other papers. For Clement Smith he designed
some theatrical posters to advertise 'The Private Secretary' and other
plays.

In the autumn of 1885 a turning-point in his career arrived as a
consequence of the visit to London of Mr W. H. Traill, managing director
of the Australian _Sydney Bulletin_, who was in search of a cartoonist
for that publication. Mr Traill obviously had an eye for a coming man,
for May's work attracted his notice at once. He offered him a contract
for three years at fifteen pounds a week, but this was not quite enough
to tempt the rising young artist to uproot himself from London, break
his newly formed connections, and exile himself to the opposite side of
the world. The offer was increased to thirty pounds, and this tipped the
balance. There is no doubt that considerations of health also had
something to do with the decision. Since his illness he had worked hard,
with little or no rest, and a sea-voyage promised well as a change and a
tonic. The contract was signed, and May and his wife sailed for
Australia on November 11th, 1885.

For the three years of the contract May worked strenuously and
exclusively for the _Bulletin_, producing about nine hundred drawings,
cartoons, caricatures and jokes. He and Rossi Ashton between them
provided practically the whole of the illustrations required. Both he
and his wife were extremely popular in Sydney, and May's humour,
generosity, ability and modesty made him liked by everyone. Rumour has
it that Traill, notwithstanding his recognition of May's talent, was
somewhat uneasy about the appointment, even after the artist had
definitely established his position with the _Bulletin_ readers. He
appears to have misunderstood the apparently effortless character of
May's work, and, showing him an obviously more laboured drawing by
another artist, asked, 'Couldn't you finish up your drawings a bit--more
like this?' May's reply was characteristic. 'When I can leave out half
the lines I now use I shall want six times the money!'

The three years spent in Sydney had an enormous effect on May and his
future. The compulsory and regular production of drawings may either by
its monotony ruin an artist's work or, if he can maintain his enthusiasm
and interest, greatly strengthen and improve it. In May's case the
novelty of his surroundings, the confidence of an assured income and the
constant intercourse with other artists, from whom he learned much,
stimulated his powers and broadened his outlook. He formed a friendship
with Blamire Young, the Australian artist, and used his studio at
Katoomba College, NSW. He was always experimenting with various methods
and collecting knowledge and material which he often used in later
years. After years of struggle and hardship he began to realize that his
talents would now provide him with comfort and security. The Australian
climate, with his improved conditions of life, contributed very
favourably to an improvement in his health, which, never very robust,
had been sadly affected by neglect and poverty.

Before the _Bulletin_ contract expired in the autumn of 1888, May had
attracted to himself another good friend, anxious to assist in his
artistic development. This was a Mr Theodore Fink, a wealthy Australian,
who thought that a term of study in Rome and Paris would be for the
benefit of May's art, and so urgently pressed his desire to provide the
expenses of the experiment that in the end May gratefully accepted the
offer. There were many reasons prompting a return to Europe. Money in
those days was plentiful in Sydney, but living was extravagant, and
May's earnings did not provide much more than the weekly expenses.
Though his own health had improved, that of his wife had of late been
indifferent, and, with all their Australian success, both were growing a
little homesick. Moreover, beyond Rome and Paris there was always the
lure of London, the centre of all things in Phil May's world. So with
every gratitude to the excellent Mr Fink, who was well content to
support the cause of art with a thousand pounds, the Mays set out for
Europe in the late autumn of 1888.

May's connection with _The Sydney Bulletin_ did not wholly cease,
however, with the end of his contract, and he continued to send
contributions from time to time until 1894. To the end Sydney and its
_Bulletin_ never forgot Phil May. In 1904, the year after his death, a
representative collection of his drawings was published by the
_Bulletin_ under the title _Phil May in Australia_, with an account of
his life and an excellent appreciation of his work by Mr A. G. Stephens.

Their sea-journey back finished at Naples, and the Mays went thence to
Rome. Here Phil set to work to justify his patron's liberality, but with
all his study of the old masters he did not neglect the close
observation of contemporary characters. Indeed, there can be no doubt
that the world of his own day was May's best school, and the life about
him offered a better training for an artist of his temperament than the
works of the great painters of the past. Nevertheless Rome and its works
of art and architecture impressed him deeply, and he expressed the fact
in his own peculiar fashion when he wrote in a letter to his brother
that 'Be it ever so crumbly, there's no place like Rome.' From Rome,
after a short visit to London, he went to Paris, where he shared a
studio and garden at Puteaux with Henry Thompson, a landscape painter.
Thompson, whose portrait often appears in Phil May's drawings,
afterwards edited the last seven of the _Phil May Annuals_. Among his
other friends in Paris were William (later Sir William) Rothenstein,
Charles Conder, and two Americans, both well-known illustrators, W. T.
Smedley and C. S. Reinhardt.

May worked hard in Paris, though he did little or nothing of the
conventional work of the schools. He began, it is true, by collecting a
large stock of painter's materials, but went very little farther in that
direction. His instinct was all for drawing, for the cultivation of
beauty and significance in line, and the harder he worked the more he
became confirmed in his devotion to the special department wherein his
genius lay. Much of his time in Paris was spent in the streets and
boulevards and in the cafes, collecting sketches and notes of types,
ever improving his native gift of seizing and presenting character.

On his return from Australia May had renewed his connection with _The St
Stephen's Review_, to which he sent contributions from Rome and Paris.
He soon began making the drawings for _Politics in the Nursery_ in the
Christmas number of 1889, and _The Parson and the Painter_ which first
appeared in its pages in 1890. This was an account, week by week, of
visits by the bland and innocent country parson, the Rev Joseph
Slapkins, and his more sophisticated artist nephew, Charlie Summers, to
various well-known theatrical and sporting resorts 'about Town' with
occasional excursions farther afield to Whitby, Scarborough, Boulogne
and Paris. Although on its first appearance in the paper the series
created no great impression, the drawings mark another important stage
of progress in May's career. When in 1891 they were published in book
form at a shilling, thirty thousand copies were sold, despite the
protest of an eminent Church dignitary which kept it off the railway
bookstalls. A very appreciative three-column review of the book in _The
Daily Chronicle_ acclaimed its merit and set the seal on the young
artist's fame. It was at once recognized that here was a new genius
among our graphic humorists, a very great master in black-and-white art.
The marvellous portraiture, the accurate drawing, the magic of his line,
the boisterous humour and the delightful recklessness of the whole
achievement were never surpassed even by May himself in any of his later
work. It was here that he first completely found himself, and definitely
established his own personal method. As a brilliant record of an
interesting phase of Victorian life it should be well worth
republishing.

Between the publication of _The Parson and the Painter_ in _The St
Stephen's Review_ and its appearance as a paper-covered book, May was
engaged by _The Daily Graphic_. His first drawings appeared on November
12th, 1890. On October 10th of the following year the weekly _Graphic_
printed his first contribution--Arthur Roberts in _Joan of Arc_ at the
Gaiety Theatre--and thereafter many others, including coloured drawings
in its Christmas numbers. One of the artists on _The Daily Graphic_ at
that time has described how Mr Harvey Thomas, son of W. L. Thomas, the
founder of both papers, brought into the studio a modest, smiling young
man with wonderfully penetrating eyes whom he introduced as Phil May.
Here he met, among other artists, A. S. Hartrick, E. J. Sullivan and
Frank Dean, who were numbered with his greatest friends and admirers
till his death.

In 1893 Mr W. L. Thomas formed the excellent plan of sending May on a
tour round the world in company with E. S. Grew, a member of _The Daily
Graphic_ literary staff. The resultant text and drawings, which began to
appear on April 16th, provided a notable feature of that journal for the
duration of the tour. The World's Fair at Chicago became the limit of
the journey, for here May rebelled. Industrious and persistent as he was
in his work, in other matters a certain whimsical irresponsibility was
part of his nature, and no doubt Grew, who was inspired to style himself
'Phil's chaperon', had not found it altogether easy to keep his erratic
companion to the appointed track even so far. Probably the American
types did not appeal to him like his beloved Londoners, or perhaps the
home-sickness which had brought him back from Australia again asserted
its influence. May insisted that America did not agree with him, and it
was plain that he was not disposed to go on. It was a long way to London
travelling west from Chicago, and much shorter to go back in an easterly
direction. So it came about that on July 6th, 1893, the two returned
travellers might have been seen mounting the stairs of _The Daily
Graphic_ office to face the disappointed proprietor. Work was resumed in
London, and May's drawings in _The Graphic_ publications were none the
fewer, though less world-wide in subject than they might have been. A
selection from them, including several of those done in America, was
published in book form in 1897.

By this time May was contributing to many of the illustrated papers:
_Pick-me-up_, for which in 1891 he did an excellent series of thumbnail
portraits called 'On the Brain', _The Sketch, The Pall Mall Budget,
Black and White, The English Illustrated Magazine_ and _The Daily
Chronicle_. The work for _The English Illustrated Magazine_ in 1893-94,
then under the editorship of C. K. Shorter, consisted of three or four
illustrations to a monthly causerie 'The Whirligig of Time'. Editors now
clamoured for his work because, apart from its humour and merit, it
could be reproduced so easily and satisfactorily on any sort of paper,
and his prices rose accordingly. He also made many drawings for
advertisements, menu cards, and theatrical programmes, and was often
called upon to do 'lightning sketches' at after-dinner entertainments
and concerts. In 1892 he successfully launched his _Annual_, which
appeared regularly until 1905, two years after his death, in thirteen
winter editions and three extra summer numbers. The early volumes were
published by Mr Walter Haddon, who had issued _The Parson and the
Painter_, and Mr Neville Beeman, but in 1898 the _Annual_ was
transferred to Messrs Thacker & Co, who for some reason spoilt the
uniformity of the set by lengthening the page. Of the first number more
than fifty-three thousand copies were sold.

Phil May made his first appearance in _Punch_ with a small drawing on
October 14th, 1893. Ten of his drawings were published in its pages in
1894, and thereafter he rarely missed a weekly contribution and was well
represented in the Almanacks. At first his humour, dealing as it often
did with low life, was considered somewhat out of place in its sedate
surroundings, and it was not until February, 1895, that his powers,
admirably championed by Mr M. H. Spielmann, were fully recognized, and
he was elected to the _Punch_ staff, where he remained a much-valued and
very popular member until his death. His initials are carved on the
famous table between those of Thackeray and Du Maurier. At his first
_Punch_ dinner he was obviously shy and nervous and a little bored. At
the end of the evening when nearly everyone had gone, he turned quietly
and timidly to Bernard Partridge with his customary suggestion, 'Let's
go to Romano's and have a drink.' When other engagements prevented him
attending the dinner he generally managed to secure a copy of the menu
as 'evidence for Lil'.

Many of the earlier _Punch_ artists--Doyle, Keene, Leech and Sambourne
among them--had been first presented to the public in its own pages.
Phil May, with Bernard Partridge and Raven-Hill, belonged to a later
generation, who had made their reputation elsewhere before joining the
staff. Little or nothing in the way of official recognition came to any
of the band, although John Tenniel and, later, Bernard Partridge
received the honour of knighthood. In 1896, after the publication of
_Gutter-snipes_, May was elected R.I., the only contemporary
black-and-white artist who shared the distinction with him being Hugh
Thomson. Lord Leighton, then President, who greatly admired May's work,
wished to see him proposed for election as Associate of the Royal
Academy; but Leighton's death early in 1896 ended the idea, for no other
academician of that time had the temerity to adopt it.

When one considers the names of many artists, long since forgotten, who
received full academic honours, it seems remarkable that an
associateship, at least, had not been conferred on Charles Keene. May,
at any rate, had the distinction of having forced on that august
corporation the consideration of recognizing black-and-white drawing as
a form of art. Once at least he contributed to the annual exhibition.
Item No. 1558 in the 1898 catalogue was described as 'Drawings
illustrating J. M. Barrie's play of _The Little Minister_'.

At this time May's output, charged with the feverish energy of genius,
was enormous, and his work brought a large income, which was spent or
squandered faster than he received it. At his zenith his year's earnings
must have been very good, but the money was mostly received in advance
of the work and probably spent in advance of receipt. If it had been
spent on himself and his wife it would have been well employed, but he
became surrounded by a crowd of sponging parasites who must have
absorbed more than escaped them. In those days the cult of the saloon
bar was at its strongest, and May spent very much of his time in those
friendly haunts. Any man who goes about providing drinks for everybody
in sight is inevitably certain to take too many himself. May was the
kindest and most generous soul imaginable. It was an ordinary incident
for him to give a newsboy half a sovereign for a halfpenny evening paper
because he thought 'the little beggar looked as though he could do with
it'. If he hadn't any money in his pocket he would give the suppliant
his gold watch or his overcoat, telling him to get what he could on it
and let him have the ticket. But this easy going generosity, it need
hardly be said, attracted a swarm of would-be beneficiaries of a far
less worthy type than the newsboy, and his best friends were continually
spending their energies in a hopeless attempt to defend him against the
sham-Bohemian parasites who surrounded him: 'actors' who had never been
seen on any stage, 'journalists' who had been kicked out of every office
in Fleet Street and 'sportsmen' on whom the racecourse police kept a
sharp eye. His real friends usually had business of their own to look
after, and so were less continually in his company than the undesirable
loafers who preyed on him for drinks, cigars, and other cadgings.

In such circumstances it will be understood that May's life was in a
double sense a hand-to-mouth existence. Mr Ernest Brown, proprietor of
the Leicester Galleries and a good friend of May, had quite a collection
of letters, some charmingly illustrated, all appealing for money on
account. Many of the letters referred to periods of ill-health, and, as
may be supposed, much of his work was done under very adverse
conditions. Nobody, however, could have been more scrupulously
conscientious in ultimately fulfilling his obligations whether he had
spent the money or not. Often he had to escape to the country or to
France to complete a batch of commissions. Unfortunately he was not so
particular in the important matter of punctuality, and most of the
editors for whom he worked were obliged to send a representative to
fetch his drawings. Sometimes the call had to be repeated several times
and often the work was done while the messenger waited. Despite all
these drawbacks, mostly self-inflicted, the amount of sheer hard work he
got through was surprising. Others besides Mr Ernest Brown, editors
especially, must have received similar letters, and the cheques they
elicited, although often large, usually melted in a few hours. It was a
standing order at _The Sketch_ office that five pounds were always to be
left out to be paid to May in exchange for any drawing he might leave.
The result of this arrangement was that the artist, finding himself in
need of money when in the Strand neighbourhood, would draw a sketch
(usually just a single figure--a type of character or the like) just as
another person might draw a cheque, and cash it over the counter. This
proved to be a profitable investment, for after May's death, when all
the rest of his work had been published, _The Sketch_ still had a long
series of Phil May drawings in hand. Mr Harvey Thomas has described how
Phil, finding nobody in _The Sketch_ office but an inexorable clerk or
office boy, who would part with nothing till he could grasp the drawing,
would calmly stroll into _The Graphic_ office, borrow a sheet of Bristol
board and a pen, make a quick sketch, and take it straightway into the
'opposition shop' to draw his fiver! He had a similar convenient
arrangement with Mr T. J. Barratt, the managing director of A. and F.
Pears Ltd, who used many of his drawings as effective and unconventional
advertisements.

It will be readily understood that, after such a life of cheerful
financial chaos, little or nothing was left at May's death; and even his
original drawings, which he had intended to leave for the benefit of his
widow, had been in large measure scattered freely among deserving and
undeserving alike. May's residences in London after his return from
Australia, so far as I have been able to trace them, were at 34 King
Street, Covent Garden; 31 Fitzroy Square (1890); 7 Holland Park Road
(1892); Rowsley House, Holland Park Road (1896); 11 Campden Hill Square
(1899); 15 Elm Tree Road, St John's Wood; and 5 Melina Place, Grove End
Road, St John's Wood (1902). The studios in Holland Park Road were the
scene of the more notable of the well-remembered Sunday afternoon
receptions. May always thoroughly enjoyed parties, and liked to see
crowds of his friends at these very informal at-homes, which at first
were very delightful. Singers, actors, writers, painters, English and
Australian, all admirers of his genius, crowded into the studio with
their friends, and no pleasanter, genuinely Bohemian gatherings are
remembered by those who were privileged to be present. Melba was there
more than once, and Agnes Nicholls and Ada Crossley often came and sang.

In appearance May was slightly above average height, perhaps about five
feet eight, with a slight figure and something of the appearance of an
intellectual groom, to which his fondness for wearing riding costume
contributed. He had exquisitely beautiful and delicate hands, and his
keen, alert face, with straight, smooth fringe, grey discerning eyes and
firm mouth, is very well known in his many drawings of himself, which
are always excellent portraits. The mouth was the most striking feature,
betokening that dogged persistence that brought him through many
difficulties to the position of a universally acknowledged master. He
once explained that the straight fringe, which was so noticeable a
characteristic of his appearance, was purely a result of maternal
affection. 'All owing to my dear old mother,' he declared. 'She would
pat my head and smooth my hair down and tell me I was a pretty boy--and
I think she believed it! But anyhow it won't lie any other way now.'

'Spy's' _Vanity Fair_ portrait (February 21st, 1895) gives a very true
impression of May as he was at the height of his fame. In _Jimmy Glover,
his book_ (Methuen, 1911), is reproduced a self-portrait of May done at
Leeds in 1880, in which he is shown wearing a similar bowler hat and
long overcoat. J. J. Shannon's painting in the Tate Gallery is an
excellent presentment of him in his later years, except perhaps that it
gives the impression of a much taller man. He himself once described
this to a friend as a masterpiece--'a perfect masterpiece, my boy: he
hasn't missed a single----pimple.'

Despite his enormous success he remained quietly unaffected by his
celebrity. Kindly, simple and modest, interested in life and the people
he met, he was always reserved and shy with strangers. Conscious of his
weakness, his respect for ladies was generally strong enough to restrain
him from drinking too freely until they had retired. He was intensely
fond of children and would give and promise them all sorts of
extravagant presents. He rarely talked about art or pictures, and then
only to the few of his intimates who would understand; life and his own
presentation of it interested him more. Although he loved horses and
dogs, and was fond of riding--his only exercise--May could not be called
a sportsman. He liked to wear sporting clothes, check coats, well-cut
breeches, shining leather gaiters, because they had character, and he
loved character both in life and in his work. He visited racecourses
only for the purpose of making drawings, which were so wonderfully vivid
and successful that they probably prompted the idea that he was a keen
racing man. Phil May could not be called a widely read man, as may well
be supposed from the manner of his life; but in a restricted sense he
might be considered well read, for his taste in literature was extremely
good. In all matters of the arts indeed he had a most accurate instinct
for quality and nobody could more sincerely love the best, whether in
literature, music or painting.

A friend who knew him well has written the following impression: 'May
was a man, in spite of all his faults and weaknesses, to whom one could
not help being very much attracted. He was always gentlemanly in
behaviour, had charming manners, was a very good talker on many
subjects, very witty, and a great lover of music. I have seen him
cross-grained, very, very depressed, and out of temper, but his charming
manner never deserted him.' No man surely was ever more truly loved by
his many real friends, for 'e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side'.

The tragedy of his life was caused by that easiness and friendliness of
disposition which led him into drinking habits, and these in his case
unfortunately produced little in the way of inspiration but many sad and
remorseful after-effects. As early as the year 1897 he had written to a
friend, 'I have been very unwell and overworked for the last year or
more, and it is beginning to tell on me. I don't see any prospect of a
rest.' The pace at which he lived and the hopeless irregularity of his
habits, acting on a naturally slight constitution, weakened by his early
years of want and hardship, produced the inevitable result.

He died of phthisis and cirrhosis of the liver on August 5th, 1903, at 5
Melina Place, St John's Wood, London, and was buried in St Mary's Roman
Catholic Cemetery at Kensal Rise. The headstone on the grave bears the
inscription:

                Pray for the soul of Philip William May
                             'Phil May'
                  Who died 5th August, 1903, aged 39
                            _Requiescat_.

The sad ravages of disease can be estimated from the fact that at his
death his weight had been reduced to only five stone. May never ceased
to draw as long at his fingers could guide the pencil. A number of
sketches, executed on his deathbed, of a model who sat daily in
seventeenth-century costume--the absolute last--betray no sign of
weakness or failing power. It is remarkable that six of the greatest of
English draughtsmen--Randolph Caldecott, A. Boyd Houghton, George J.
Pinwell, Frederick Walker, Tom Browne and Phil May--all died before
reaching the age of forty. So passed a lovable man and a great artist,
'a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy'.

A committee formed in Leeds in October, 1909, was able, after much hard
work, to place on the house where he had been born a memorial consisting
of an excellent bronze portrait medallion by Caldwell Spruce, a Leeds
artist and a friend of May. This was unveiled in June, 1910, by Mr E. T.
Reed, an old _Punch_ colleague. It also gathered a very representative
collection of his drawings for permanent exhibition in the Leeds Art
Gallery, and established two small prizes for black-and-white drawing at
the local college of art. Thus one prophet at least was not without
honour in his own country.

The late Sir Sydney Colvin for years tried in vain to induce the British
Museum Trustees to add some of May's drawings to the Print Room
collections; and but for private generosity there might be none there
now. As it is, however, he is represented there by thirty-three drawings
mostly the gift in 1920 of Mr Arthur Morrison, and by thirty drawings,
many of doubtful origin, at South Kensington. There are ten drawings by
May in the National Portrait Gallery. The Tate Gallery has four
excellent pen-and-ink drawings, purchased in 1927, and a small
watercolour, 'The Drawing Master'. Three of these were evidently made
for _The Parson and the Painter_, but do not appear in the book. In the
Glasgow Corporation Art Gallery are seventeen chalk drawings and eleven
in pen-and-ink, most of them the gift of Sir William Burrell in 1925. In
the secretary's office at the Garrick Club is a watercolour portrait, 18
inches by 12, of Arthur W. Pinero the dramatist, in Georgian costume,
made about 1885. The Leeds collection, which is very comprehensive,
includes seventy items, most of which are the gift of the Memorial
Committee, and a replica of the portrait medallion on May's birthplace.

There were many exhibitions of his drawings during his lifetime. One at
the Fine Art Society in May, 1895, contained 165 items. The prefatory
note for the catalogue was written by M. H. Spielmann. Two months after
his death 168 of his drawings were shown at the Leicester Galleries in
October, 1903, and 110 in November, 1908. At the City Art Gallery,
Leeds, in September-October, 1913, an exhibition of 118 items was
introduced by E. R. Phillips of _The Yorkshire Post_. Another collection
at Leeds in March, 1936, organized by the Mayoress, Mrs Percy Leigh,
contained 450 exhibits of various kinds but the authorship of many of
these was very obviously doubtful.




PART II

PHIL MAY: THE DRAUGHTSMAN


IN THE HISTORY of British Art in the past hundred years a very prominent
feature--perhaps the most prominent feature--has been the wonderful
development of drawing in black-and-white. Setting aside the great
masters of monochrome painting in China and Japan, no other country has
produced such a large number of capable artists working entirely or
partly in this medium. Of all forms of graphic representation this is
the most rigorous, because, by reason of its limitations, the faults as
well as the merits of any particular performance are patent even to the
inexperienced eye. No superficial technique, dexterity or surface
quality can conceal errors in drawing, perspective, proportion or
composition, which in a painting may easily pass unnoticed under the
distraction or fascination of colour. A monochrome reproduction of a
painting will often reveal faults unobserved in the original. The
black-and-white artist has therefore to realize the restrictions of his
materials, and in the skill with which he triumphs over them and even
uses them to increase the effect he strives to produce, lies the measure
of his success or failure. Many men who have achieved but a modest
mastery of black-and-white have afterwards gained considerable success
as painters in colour.

This, of course, is not to say that draughtsmanship has no great
importance in painting, but merely to suggest that its relative
prominence is far greater in the plainer form of monochrome drawing.
Further, it must not be forgotten that colour can be expressed, or
rather suggested, in the finest examples of black-and-white, as can be
seen in many of the best drawings by such men as Birket Foster, Charles
Keene, William Hatherell, Frank Craig, Maurice Greiffenhagen and others.
Most black-and-white drawings are made to be printed in more or less
reduced facsimile, and, in addition to his draughtsmanship, the artist
must have a knowledge of the various methods of reproduction in order to
ensure the most satisfactory results.

In this remarkable development of black-and-white drawing in England
there have been two very great periods, which have been called The
'Sixties' and The 'Nineties'. The former includes the years between 1855
and 1870 and has been very ably recorded and summarized by Mr Gleeson
White in _English Illustration: The 'Sixties'_ (Constable, 1897), and by
Mr Forrest Reid in _Illustrators of the 'Sixties'_ (Faber and Gwyer,
1928). Most of this work consisted of illustrations for books, stories
and poems, and was done by artists who were painters or afterwards
became more famous as painters. They were, many of them, not essentially
black-and-white artists, but used this method for gaining experience and
financial support to enable them to paint. Their drawings were
reproduced by wood-engraving, and thus gave employment to a school of
very able engravers, who were technically skilled in translating a
drawing, made either with a brush, pencil or pen, into a very accurate
representation on the printed page. Many of the drawings were made
directly on the wood-block and consequently disappeared in the
engraving, but later a method was evolved of transferring the drawing by
means of photography. The best-known engravers of that time were the
Dalziel brothers and Joseph Swain and much of their work appeared in the
three most prominent illustrated magazines of the time, _Once a Week,
Cornhill_ and _Good Words_.

Between the years 1880 and 1890 the invention and development of the
process-block, by which drawings could be reproduced mechanically and
with far greater accuracy, led to an enormous increase in the number of
illustrated journals and books and a great revival and advance of
black-and-white drawing. Newspapers could reproduce drawings and
photographs far more quickly and cheaply than by the slow and laborious
method of wood-engraving, and so were able to illustrate more recent
events. Today the pictorial recording of news is almost entirely in the
hands of photographers who are generally attached to the staff of the
newspaper, and the use of drawings is restricted to the illustration and
decoration of advertisements, humorous ideas, cartoons and books. Thus
the fevered haste of a news drawing, which often by force of necessity
produced many good qualities, is a thing of the past, and it remains to
be seen whether or not the more leisured opportunities of today will
produce finer black-and-white work. At present there are few signs of
this improvement, but rather a tendency to revert to an imitation of the
old woodcuts, or to adopt sensational and freakish styles of
draughtsmanship which are often a cloak for incompetence or meant as a
short cut to public notice.

If Keene, Millais, Foster, Pinwell and Houghton stand out as the great
men of the 'sixties', the leading figure of the later revival of English
illustration was undoubtedly Phil May. In fact, his preeminence,
unanimously acclaimed by his contemporaries, and his influence on their
work are even more outstanding than in the case of any of the earlier
artists. To appreciate this high distinction it is well to remember some
of those who were working in black-and-white at this time; such as--to
place them alphabetically--E. A. Abbey, Aubrey Beardsley, Reginald
Cleaver, Walter Crane, Maurice Greiffenhagen, Dudley Hardy, A. S.
Hartrick, William Hatherell, Bernard Partridge, Joseph Pennell, L.
Raven-Hill, Linley Sambourne, J. A. Shepherd, C. A. Shepperson, S. H.
Sime, E. J. Sullivan and Hugh Thomson, a galaxy of talent fit to rank
with the men of the 'sixties'.

In England the two chief exponents of drawing with a pen have been
Charles Keene and Phil May, and it is extremely difficult and equally
unnecessary, to say which was the greater. Keene, with his long, placid,
methodical career, always gaining in skill, May, in a short-lived,
hectic, brilliant outburst, like a tremendous shower of rockets, both
produced the finest results of close and conscientious observation and
skilled draughtsmanship, with the individual charm of their own
personality. If Keene delights us with his accurate realization of tone
values, May astonishes us no less with the exuberance and joy of his
technique and the assured power of his virile line, and was preeminent
in the skill with which he arranged the boldly contrasting masses of
black and white, each brilliantly emphasizing the other. No draughtsman
has ever exceeded him in his vigorous and assured control of a pen, and
it is remarkable that this wonderful strength should have proceeded from
so physically frail a source. Keene used a pen and modified the colour
of his ink to suggest perfectly the varying degrees of greyness and
blackness that others could represent only with a brush or pencil. May's
pen was never more or less than a pen; he gloried in the fact that it
was a pen and made us share the joy and magic of each crisp black line
that it produced. He accepted fully the restrictions of pen-and-ink
drawing and by his genius converted them into an important factor of
strength. At his best Phil May represented the highest point to which
black-and-white line drawing has ever attained. By his genius for
observation and selection and the extreme simplification of his method
of presentation he showed that a pen-drawing can be a very eminent form
of art. By reason of its more restricted publication Keene's work was
never appreciated by the general public to the same extent as May's,
with its greater opportunity of appeal. Perhaps we may say that if Keene
was the greater artist of the two, May was the more brilliant
draughtsman and certainly he was the greater humorist. He once settled
the question in his own characteristic way when some members of the
Savage Club were debating which was the better, Keene or May: 'Keene is
the daddy of the lot of us.' Both men, it should be noticed, devoted the
whole of their talents and energy to black-and-white work and did not
regard it merely as a preliminary step to painting.

There is a general and regrettable tendency, not only with the general
public but even among art critics, to regard a humorous drawing as an
ephemeral production, not worthy of further consideration after it has
achieved its purpose of raising a laugh. An elaborate and sometimes
badly drawn design of an uninteresting subject, evolved as a result of
great research and laboured workmanship, and perpetuated in paint, may
be considered as a work of art. If, however, the incident illustrated
contains a humorous idea and the drawing is done with simple materials,
it is dismissed as a 'dashed-off sketch' of no importance. Nobody would
think of rating Shakespeare or Dickens lower because of their humour,
but it was more than a century before Hogarth was recognized as the
great painter he was. Of course, one understands that the ordinary
person looks only at the subject of a drawing and sees nothing else; the
merit of the work is assessed by the joke or description printed below
it. But among those who have knowledge and judgment in these matters it
is well enough understood that Daumier, Gavarni, Menzel, Vierge, Keene
and May were all far greater artists in every respect than many more
highly esteemed painters, whose work may attract attention from its
pretentious and unjustified importance.

In looking through a representative collection of Phil May's work, one
of the first facts that strikes one is the amazing maturity of his
earliest published drawings. His drawings as a child, although full
witness of the artist's enthusiasm, were often weak, fantastic, and
grotesque, and showed little promise of the truth and power which
developed later. There is little to distinguish them, except perhaps
their determined conscientiousness and skill in presenting a likeness,
from the ordinary productions of almost any boy fond of drawing. But
some of the theatrical portraits he made in his youth at Leeds and the
group of Henry Irving, John L. Toole and Squire Bancroft, which started
his career at the age of nineteen, are almost equal in portraiture and
drawing to anything he did in later years. The large drawing, 'The Seven
Ages of Society', containing no fewer than 178 portraits of celebrities,
which appeared in the winter number of Society in 1884, would not have
been very much better done, except in the matter of composition, fifteen
years later. Allowing for the possibility that all the portraits were
made from photographs, as many certainly were, the handling is always
that of a competent and experienced draughtsman. May repeatedly declared
that he never had a drawing lesson in his life; but he worked hard in
the light of his intuitive genius, to attain that perfection that always
recedes before the pursuit of the earnest artist. He drew, as a bird
sings, because he couldn't help it. His eye saw things with keen and
instant accuracy, and retained the vision long enough to enable his
skilled hand to transmute them in the form of delightful drawings for
our enjoyment and his own. If he never had a lesson, he was,
nevertheless, always learning, and reached the height of his achievement
by the possibly slow but certainly more thorough method of continual
practice, experiment and experience.

Although his methods of using a pen were entirely and inimitably his
own, he learned, as everyone must learn, from his predecessors and
contemporaries. The collection of his _Sydney Bulleti_ drawings,
published after his death under the title of _Phil May in Australia_, is
interesting to the student as it indicates the sources of the personal
style which he afterwards developed so wonderfully. The first and
strongest of these influences, as seen in the large cartoons and
portraits, was undoubtedly Linley Sambourne of _Punch_. May used the
same bold parallel lines of shading, following the surface planes. At
first he did not join the lines as skilfully as his master, but he
gradually simplified this method, using a flatter and simpler tone
throughout, so that one is less conscious of the means used to produce
the effect. He once told Raven-Hill, 'All I know I got from Sambourne.'

Some critics of May's technique have ascribed his bold line to the
limitations of the Sydney printing presses, but many of the drawings
reproduced in this Australian book show that he often used quite a fine
line, particularly in some of the shading of the faces. A comparison
with the drawings made for The _St Stephen s Review_ immediately before
the journey to Australia shows that there was no sudden change in his
manner of work on the _Bulletin_, nothing but a steady and gradual
development of strength. Mr M. H. Spielmann in a note on May's
pen-drawings tells us that 'when he puts pen to paper and starts upon a
line, he continues that line, without lifting his hand, until he finds
himself in danger of going wrong'. It was this slow deliberation and
certainty which gave to his outlines their amazingly strong quality. He
also had a wonderful gift of being able to begin the drawing of a figure
anywhere. He could start with an ear, then go on to a sleeve, then put
in an eye or the lines of the trousers, and return to the face to draw
the mouth. Evidently the drawing was visualized completely on the paper
at the outset and then marked down with the pencil. Although in the
early part of his life he probably knew nothing of their work, May's
drawings have much of the strength and quality of line of the Japanese
draughtsmen. Some of them bear a very strong spiritual resemblance to
the figure studies of Hokusai, although these were made with a brush;
the unerring, confident sweep of the lines is equally evident in both,
and the essential characteristics of the subject are as wonderfully
emphasized. In his very able account of May's work on the _Bulletin_ Mr
A. G. Stephens has an interesting note on the skilful way in which the
artist could work from a photograph, extracting the spirit, omitting the
unnecessary details and presenting the result with the delightful
freshness and freedom of an original conception. No one has ever drawn
better portraits in pen-and-ink. This practice of eliminating the
inessentials he applied with equal success to the pen-drawings he made
from his own careful pencil studies.

In an interview in _The Sketch_ of March 29th, 1893, May thus described
the way in which he built up a drawing: 'First of all I get the general
idea, of which I sketch a rough outline, and from this general idea I
never depart. Then I make several studies from the model in the poses
which the drawing requires and redraw my figures from these studies. The
next step is to draw the picture completely, carefully putting in every
line necessary to fullness of detail: and the last to select the
particular lines that are essential to the effect I want to produce and
take the others out.' Such an apparent sacrifice of so much labour
required unusual knowledge, self-denial and confidence, but was fully
justified by the results. In some cases the figures were transferred
from the sketch-book by means of tracing paper, thus ensuring much of
the freshness of the first sketch. He frequently used a sketch-book of
semi-transparent paper. The sketch being made on the last leaf, he would
drop the next leaf over it and trace on this the lines he selected as
being essential; thus he worked from the back to the front of the book.
His studies were generally made with a very sharply pointed lead or
chalk pencil, although he sometimes used, with great effect, a
carpenter's pencil, taking full advantage of the variations afforded by
the width of the lead. He often persuaded his friends to sit for him
instead of the professional model, and their portraits are easily
recognizable in many of his finished drawings. For some time he attended
weekly meetings in neighbouring studios, at which each artist took his
turn in posing for his fellow-workers. His favourite model was George
Riches, whom many will remember, dressed in Georgian costume, taking
tickets at the old Langham conversaziones. His portrait occurs in many
of the drawings as a waiter, a loafer, a man-about-town, a monk, and
even an old woman. Riches, a great character himself, who was very fond
of the master, used to tell many good stories of the strange and
unconventional happenings in the home life of the Mays.

The essence of a perfect joke illustration, as in the telling, lies in
its apparent spontaneity. It should suggest that the artist took his
pencil and drew as he related the incident or dialogue. The more
elaborate the drawing appears, the more protracted the recital of the
story, the more 'weary, stale, flat and unprofitable' it becomes. No
greater tribute could be paid to May's success and popularity in this
respect than the fact that at one time a 'Phil May drawing' was a
general term among indiscriminating readers of illustrated papers for
any humorous drawing in pen-and-ink. This was, fortunately, before the
days of slogans, but May's might well have been 'Facility and Felicity'.

The apparent simplicity of Phil May's drawings induced a considerable
output of imitations and forgeries, which were and are still sold as
originals. In a bequest of ten alleged Phil Mays' to the South
Kensington Museum nine were obvious and unskilful fakes. Careful
examination generally exposes the hesitancy and weakness of line which
distinguish them from the bold sureness and strength of the real
article. By long practice May was able in later years to dispense with
some of the preliminary work, and towards the end of his career his
drawings were obviously produced much more easily, though with some
sacrifice of the old conscientious carefulness.

In all his drawings that I have examined I have found no trace of any
alteration or erasure. This is unusual in line-drawings and emphasizes
the certainty with which he decided on the exact method of treatment. He
was fond of scribbling on any scrap of paper imaginary sketches of
fantastic figures, grotesque heads and exaggerated recollections of
people he had seen. Very often these were done to test the possibilities
of a new pen, and many of the results are intensely interesting as
showing the wanderings of his fancy, unrestrained by the demands of
reproduction, and the amazing sureness and dexterity of his control of
his instrument. May used every kind of pen in his work, from the finest
steel 'crowquill' to the broadest and most responsive goose-quill and
reed-pen. With these he practised for hours, drawing those swift
parallel lines of shading which he used with such unhesitating
conviction.

Phil May's advice to the young artist was to draw from life and to keep
on drawing from life. He himself was always collecting material in the
form of characters or types, and his notebooks, of which he filled
hundreds, must have been intensely interesting. His pencil and pen were
seldom idle. He would draw a fantastic and skittish bonnet over the
grave profile of Queen Victoria on a receipt stamp, a self-portrait or
character study in a few lines on a letter or postcard; or at a dinner
he would scribble caricatures on his own and his neighbours' menu-cards
to the huge delight of the owners. Even when his many spells of illness
kept him to his bed he would amuse himself and keep his hand in by
covering large sheets of paper with hundreds of tiny drawings. Some of
his sketch-books should have been secured for our national collections,
but it now appears to be very difficult to trace them. I have only been
able to find two, both excellent, in the possession of Mr W. T. Spencer,
of 27 New Oxford Street, London. Many were broken up and the sketches
sold separately, and this probably accounts for their scarcity. The long
series of 'Things we see when we come out without our Gun', which he did
for _The Sydney Bulletin_, was the result of these sketch-book notes,
and shows his wonderful power of quick, accurate observation as well as
his keen sense of character.

His drawings of costers and their 'donahs', which were among the best of
his studies, were obviously inspired by a deep and sympathetic
understanding of his subjects. Their boisterous enjoyment of life
evidently appealed to him, and he loved drawing them. Jews of all types
also engaged May's artistic interest, with a particularly keen and
sympathetic insight into their character. The pronounced physiognomy of
the Chinaman, which in Australia had appealed strongly to his pencil,
also provided material for some of his finest studies. With many artists
it is easy to notice some personal peculiarity which distinguishes all
their characters and gives them all a sort of family likeness. May's
people were always different because they were always true, and were not
grotesquely nor mechanically exaggerated; they were thus actual
individuals, not only more convincing but also more truly humorous than
the composite results of wild distortion. As Mr M. H. Spielmann said in
his introduction to the catalogue of May's first exhibition in 1895,
'The essence of his work is its inexorable truth, recorded with the
pencil of a laughing philosopher and observer. He is frankly and simply
a humorist, whose aim is to draw men and things as they are, seen
through a curtain of fun and raillery, and not as they might or should
be.' He was concerned only with presenting clearly and simply the
momentary humour of the story or situation, not with its possible sequel
nor with the deduction from it of any moral. But although his subjects
were sometimes inelegant, his work was never cheapened by the slightest
vulgarity and he always maintained instinctively the aesthetic dignity
of his art.

His method of selection and elimination generally led him to simplify,
and in many cases to omit altogether, the backgrounds to his figures. If
they confused the effect or detracted from the force of the idea he was
trying to express, they were sacrificed. That he could draw backgrounds
is evident in some of the drawings in F. C. Burnand's _Zigzag Guide:
Round and about the Beautiful and Bold Kentish Coast_, in his _Punch_
work and in many of the pages from his sketch-books. If these have not
the full charm of Keene's backgrounds, it is probably because May much
preferred drawing people.

Undoubtedly his best work was done in the early numbers of his _Annual_,
where he had perfect freedom of subject and treatment, and some of his
portraits and character-studies are masterpieces. It afforded also a
valuable opportunity to print drawings which appealed to the artist
himself, although, without a 'tag' or joke below them, they might
probably never have appeared elsewhere. The winter number for 1892
contained perhaps the best collection of his drawings ever published,
and the issue for 1893 includes his greatest drawing--the portrait of Mr
Gladstone. This, he told Mr G. R. Halkett, he did from a photograph
after two or three unsuccessful attempts. In the same number are the
excellent Newlyn sketches, which, slight as they appear, convey a more
complete impression of the little town and its unconventional
inhabitants than many pages of description; and in the 1894 _Annual_ are
some interesting drawings illustrating an article on Bohemian life in
Paris. There is a fine study of a Dutchman in the 1902-3 number, and the
experimental portraits of 'brother brushes' and extracts from his
notebooks throughout the series are noteworthy.

The large page of _The Sketch_ evidently appealed to him, and, beginning
with the first issue in February, 1893, he did a number of strong and
bold drawings, fifty of which were afterwards collected in _Phil May's
Sketch Book_. Mr Raven-Hill considered that these _Sketch_ drawings were
his best, and they certainly mark the highest point of his economy and
strength of line. Somehow May never seemed quite at his best in the
pages of _Punch_. His hearty, boisterous humour and his short, crisp
jokes, set among the more sedate and elaborate contributions of those
days, seemed at first almost unbeseeming. It was rather like Dan Leno
bursting on to the Lyceum stage in Irving's time. The humour of low life
had hitherto been regarded from a superior point of view and considered
as hardly respectable. His own intimate knowledge, acquired by his early
bitter experience, adequate presentation and personal enjoyment,
introduced an entirely fresh aspect. The _Nation_, in its issue for June
27th, 1910, had an article on May, written in connection with the
unveiling of the Leeds memorial. The writer says, 'His work represented
a conscious reaction against the English gentlemanly tradition in
humorous art which _Punch_ had incarnated.' His finest _Punch_ drawings
were done in the larger spaces of the Almanacks and special numbers:
'The Labours of 'Arry' (Almanack, 1896), 'The Dream of Victorian Derby
Days' (Diamond Jubilee Number, June 19th, 1897), and the series of eight
drawings, 'From Petticoat Lane to the Lane of the Park'(Almanack, 1898),
were the best of his contributions. On a few occasions in 1902 he
illustrated, with keenly observed portrait studies, H. W. Lucy's
_Essence of Parliament_.

May's _Gutter-snipes_ (1896) and _ABC_ (1897) contain some of his best
drawings of the low life which he knew so well. The children in the
former are wonderfully true studies of poor but happy youngsters and are
real slum ragamuffins, not middle-class children dressed in rags. These
drawings, which show a very intimate knowledge of the street games of
the period, he told Mr Spielmann, were done largely from memory of his
early life in Leeds, and he is said to have modestly explained their
success by declaring, 'I was a gutter-snipe myself.' This is the sort of
statement that was often attributed to May by contemporary journalists,
and it must by no means be swallowed whole. Although his family after
his father's death was extremely poor, he was not a 'gutter-snipe'. This
is proved by the character and position of the boys with whom he
associated. It is comforting to know, moreover, on the assurance of Mr
E. J. Sullivan, that the over-sentimental and altogether
uncharacteristic foreword to the book was copied by May from a draft
made by his astute publisher. _Gutter-snipes_ is full of sympathy with
the sorrows as well as with the joys of the poor as can be seen in 'Bits
and Scraps' and 'Two Penn'orth'. The drawing of 'Getting Father Home',
in his _ABC_, also shows an understanding compassion for one of the
saddest phases of slum life. In one of May's _Punch_ drawings the parson
of a slum parish is seen showing a sympathetic American visitor the
'sorrows of the poor'. As they enter the alley unexpectedly they find
the inhabitants of all ages dancing lustily to the music of a
piano-organ. It was this part of their life, which was quite as true as
its sadder aspect, that he preferred to show us.

One of the trials of the professional humorist in any medium is that as
soon as he begins to do anything, or sometimes even before, everyone
laughs. If Phil May made a true and sympathetic study of a street-singer
it was immediately regarded as funny because he had drawn it. Beneath
the humour of many of the jokes and ideas he illustrated lay a strong
undercurrent of genuine pathos, but he was too good an artist to force
or underline the sentiment or to make it in any degree mawkish. After
all, he was a jester, and the jester's mission is not to emphasize the
sorrows of life, but, while recognizing them, to show us their lighter
side.

In 1898 he illustrated for _The Daily Chronicle_ a satirical booklet,
written by Martin M. Donohoe and Barry Pain, on a topical celebrity,
_Grien on Rougemont_, a subject which evidently appealed strongly to his
sense of boisterous burlesque and produced some delightful results. In
the same year he provided fifteen charming pencil drawings for Cyril
Maude's souvenir of _The Little Minister_, J. M. Barrie's play at the
Haymarket Theatre. In 1900 _The Phil May Album_, containing a
representative collection of his drawings from _Pick-me-up_, with an
interesting biographical notice by Augustus M. Moore, was published by
Methuen and Co, and, after his death in 1903, _The Graphic, The Pall
Mall Gazette_, and Thacker and Co. republished selections from his work
in _A Phil May Medley, A Phil May Picture Book_ and _The Phil May
Folio_.

As might be expected, May was an ardent admirer of Dickens, and in 1898
announced his intention of making illustrations for an edition of his
work to be published by George Allen. In one of his sketch-books there
is a letter to George Allen dated February 17th, 1898, asking for an
extension of time. 'I have been very ill, though I am happy to say I am
getting all right again. I am sorry to say I must ask you for a little
more time as I have been too sick for the last six months to do any
serious work, and, as I wish this work to be my very best, I want to
feel quite fit before I turn it out.... I am trying to get all my
ordinary work finished off six months ahead so that I can sit down and
have nothing else to do but _David Copperfield_.'

Unfortunately this, like so many of his schemes, was never fulfilled,
although he did three drawings; but it is not difficult to imagine what
a great success he might have made of the congenial task. A letter to a
friend, which unfortunately is not dated, announced that he was
illustrating a book of old songs for Bradbury and Agnew with a hundred
pictures, mostly in colour, but this also was never accomplished. In one
of his sketch-books, however, there are some very promising preliminary
designs for these illustrations, six pages of 'Widecombe Fair', and the
title-page of 'The Harvest Home'. These were to be followed by 'The Fly
is on the Turmut' and 'There's a Yard o' Blue Ribbon for Sal'.

With his theatrical knowledge and experience, what a treasure he might
have made of an illustrated edition of Shakespeare's comedies! It is a
great pity that his short, crowded life did not allow him time to do
more illustrations for books. In periodicals and paper-covered
collections so much of his work has disappeared: in book form it would
have had a much better chance of survival and appreciation. A friend
asked him one day why he didn't do some more serious work.

'Ah,' he replied, with that whimsical twist of self-depreciation
wherewith he often met any reference to his own work, 'if you're going
to be serious, you've got to be so dam' good.'

May's early death at the age of thirty-nine raises the interesting
question of his probable accomplishment had he lived longer. In his too
short life he had revolutionized pen-and-ink drawing: he had introduced
the line drawing wherein the line itself, by its strength and beauty,
achieved its own success. May's drawings, like all good drawings, seem
to have floated effortless on to the paper. To appreciate this fully we
have only to compare them with those of his contemporaries, which, often
excellent in their performance, appear relatively cramped and laboured.
His pencil drawings, although lacking the sparkle of the pen line, were
equally certain, and no less effective in result. May shared with Keene
the rare gift of retaining much of the charm and quality of the greyness
of the pencil sketch in the finished pen-and-ink drawing. An excellent
example of this is the head of the Gladstone portrait. One respect in
which he was unique as a line draughtsman was his wonderful skill in
portraiture. Although pen-and-ink is perhaps of all mediums the most
difficult for this purpose, yet he gave with an absolute economy of
means a perfect representation of his subject, and this is particularly
true in some of his many self-portraits. No one has ever equalled May in
his quick grasp of character. Mr A. S. Hartrick says that in drawing a
portrait from life he felt his way slowly and laboriously, following the
profile very carefully, particularly the angle of the forehead and nose.
Once he had done this to his satisfaction he could draw the face with
assured freedom in any position and expression. When he was stalking an
unsuspecting subject the various features of the face, the shape of the
nose, the line of the mouth, the slope of the chin, were sometimes
jotted down separately on his cuff or the back of an envelope, and later
pieced together to form the perfect pen-portrait. Hartrick said also
that May possessed and studied Charles Darwin's _The expression of the
emotions in man and animals_.

Many critics have assured us that May had little sense of colour, and
from the painter's point of view this was perhaps true. He undoubtedly
saw his subject in black-and-white. Herkomer, who himself had started
with black-and-white work, had great faith in May's potentialities as a
colourist and persuaded him to attempt some paintings. These, however,
failed to satisfy his own ideals or even to encourage him to continue,
and, much to Herkomer's disappointment, were destroyed. Some of the last
drawings he did were chalk studies of figures in cavalier costume, which
certainly indicate a restrained but discriminate appreciation of colour.
Whether or not this would have been developed, and, allied to his other
great gifts, have produced a great portrait-painter, is at least a very
interesting possibility to contemplate, but it seems certain that all
his interest and ambition were centred in black-and-white. In his last
year he did some watercolour drawings of Volendam, which appeared in
_The Graphic_, and a series of portraits of politicians in the same
medium, but in most cases the colour was applied in thin washes over a
line drawing, rather in the manner of Hugh Thomson or Randolph
Caldecott. Many of these tinted drawings in The Graphic were coloured by
another hand. A rough tracing of the line drawings was made by the
artist and the scheme of colouring indicated by pencil notes. I have had
one of these tracings offered as the original drawing. He cared less
than might have been expected for pictures and visited few collections
except when he was in Holland, but he was a great admirer of Franz Hals,
and had several portfolios of reproductions of his work. With his
exceptional gifts there is very little doubt that, had he mastered the
technical processes, he might have been very successful as an etcher.
His accuracy of drawing and complete control of line values, one would
think, must have produced some very great plates.

In Phil May, the artist, the humorist and the man were one. The jokes he
illustrated were in most cases the result of his own humorous
observation or invention, and this fact accounts for their completely
successful alliance with the drawing. Many of them have become classics
and are often quoted with no knowledge of their originator. Every
admirer of May's humour will have his favourites. Mine are the
Dottyville inhabitant inviting the patient angler to come inside, the
actor who often heard of salaries of twenty-five to thirty bob a week
but never saw them, and the bibulous gentleman at the railway-station
bar when asked whether he wanted tea--the reply, 'Tea!! Me! ! ! !' is
perfect. May in himself and apart from his drawings was one of the
greatest of our humorists. His gift for conciseness and the elimination
of everything not essential is exemplified as well in the wording of the
'legends' as in the pictures above them. The choice of words was
restricted to the utmost limit of brevity. He forcibly discarded the
long, superfluous explanations, often discreetly enclosed in brackets
and underlined, which were so apt to kill spontaneity in both joke and
drawing. Obtuse people who could not see the point of a Phil May joke
were not worth bothering about. In his winter _Annual_ for 1892 is a
glorious drawing of a lion-tamer who has been out late and has sought
refuge in a den of wild animals, against one of which he is dozing
triumphantly. His wife stands outside with a lantern and remarks
scornfully, 'You coward!' Mr E. J. Sullivan says that May considered
'You' unnecessary and would have omitted it.

His early ambition to become an actor fortunately never developed, and,
although his sense of humour would have proved an important asset, his
natural shyness and reserve would probably have been too great a
handicap. Although he rather hated talking, in the sense of making a
speech, he could tell a story excellently in a quiet, deliberate way
which missed nothing of the humour. On one of his rare appearances at
the London Sketch Club, of which he was one of the founders, he once
kept us enthralled with a pathetic narrative of a model and her mother,
which, after leading slowly to a climax that almost moved us to tears,
ended in his sudden admission that he had 'clean forgotten what happened
to them afterwards'.

Even in black-and-white drawing it is difficult to see in what direction
his talents would have developed. He had already reached the highest
point in technical skill, and no experiments in treatment could have
added much to its efficiency. The principal field for surmise lies in
the possibility of his extending the scope of his operations in the
direction of great illustration, as Menzel did in 'Frederick the Great',
or as Abbey did in the Shakespeare plays. His careless, uncontrolled
temperament would probably have prevented him from giving to the work
that close study, deep insight and careful preparation necessary for the
finest results. Had he been able to develop sufficient real interest in
the world of politics, he had the necessary equipment to become one of
the greatest cartoonists; but here again his sense of the ridiculous
would probably have precluded any other point of view. Possibly he
himself was beginning to realize these limitations imposed by his
temperament and sought another outlet for the expression and development
of his humour on the stage. One almost feels that Nature, seeing that he
had completed his work, stepped in and wrote 'Finis'.

But perhaps these might-have-beens are all unprofitable. Let us be
grateful for Phil May as he was: a very great draughtsman, an exquisite
humorist, a man of delightful, lovable, and even, in some respects,
determined character, who triumphed over great difficulties, and
achieved the highest success in one of the finest form of art--the art
of making people laugh.




BOOKS ILLUSTRATED BY PHIL MAY


1891  THE PARSON AND THE PAINTER: THEIR WANDERINGS AND EXCURSIONS AMONG
      MEN AND WOMEN by the Rev Joseph Slapkins (William Allison).
      Illustrated by Charlie Summers (Phil May). _London Central
      Publishing and Advertising Co_.

1892  PHIL MAY'S WINTER ANNUAL. _Walter Haddon._
      PHIL MAY'S SUMMER ANNUAL. _London Central Publishing and
      Advertising Co_.

1893  PHIL MAY'S WINTER ANNUAL. _Walter Haddon_

1894  PHIL MAY'S WINTER ANNUAL. _Walter Haddon_
      FUN, FROLIC AND FANCY. Byron Webber and Phil May. _Chatto & Windus_

1895  PHIL MAY'S WINTER ANNUAL. _Walter Haddon_
      THE COMET COACH by Henry H. S. Pearse. _John Haddon & Co._
      PHIL MAY'S SKETCHBOOK. _Chatto & Windus_
      THE WITHERED JESTER by Arthur Patchett. _Dent & Sons_

1896  PHIL MAY'S WINTER ANNUAL. _Neville Beeman_
      PHIL MAY'S GUTTERSNIPES. _Leadenhall Press_
      MAYVILLE: ITS ATTRACTIONS AND AIMS. _T. Fisher Unwin_
      ISN'T IT WONDERFUL by Charles Bertram. _Swan Sonnenschein_

1897  PHIL MAY'S WINTER ANNUAL. _Neville Beeman_
      PHIL MAY'S GRAPHIC PICTURES. _Routledge & Sons_
      PHIL MAY'S A.B.C. _Leadenhall Press_
      Z.Z.G. OR ZIGZAG GUIDE: ROUND AND ABOUT THE BEAUTIFUL AND BOLD
      KENTISH COAST described by F. C. Burnand. _A. & C. Black_

1898  PHIL MAY'S SUMMER ANNUAL. _Thacker & Co._
      PHIL MAY'S WINTER ANNUAL. _Thacker & Co._
      A SOUVENIR by Cyril Maude of 'The Little Minister' by J. M. Barrie
      SONGS AND THEIR SINGERS. Bradbury, _Agnew & Co._

1898  GRIEN ON ROUGEMONT, OR THE STORY OF A MODERN ROBINSON CRUSOE by
      Martin M. Donohoe and Barry Pain. _E. Lloyd Ltd. The Daily
      Chronicle_
      BOOK OF THE (PRESS) BAZAAR. June

1899  FIFTY HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED PEN-AND-INK SKETCHES. _Leadenhall Press_
      PHIL MAY ALBUM collected by Augustus M. Moore. _Methuen & Co._
      PHIL MAY'S WINTER ANNUAL. _Thacker & Co._

1900  PHIL MAY'S WINTER ANNUAL. _Thacker & Co._

1901  PHIL MAY'S WINTER ANNUAL. _Thacker & Co._

1902  PHIL MAY'S SUMMER ANNUAL. _Thacker & Co._
      PHIL MAY'S WINTER ANNUAL. _Thacker & Co._
      EAST LONDON by Walter Besant. _Chatto & Windus_

1903  PHIL MAY'S WINTER ANNUAL. _Thacker & Co._
      SKETCHES FROM PUNCH. _Punch Office_
      A PHIL MAY PICTURE BOOK. _The Pall Mall Magazine Office_
      A PHIL MAY MEDLEY. _The Graphic Company_
      LITTLEDON CASTLE by Mrs M. H. Spielmann. _Routledge_

1904  PHIL MAY'S WINTER ANNUAL. _Thacker & Co._
      PHIL MAY IN AUSTRALIA. _Sydney, The Bulletin Newspaper Co._
      PHIL MAY FOLIO. _Thacker & Co._

1907  HUMOROUS MASTERPIECES. _Cowans & Gray_

1908  HUMORISTS OF THE PENCIL: PHIL MAY. _Punch Office_




PERIODICALS TO WHICH
PHIL MAY CONTRIBUTED ILLUSTRATIONS


_The Yorkshire Gossip_
_The Busy Bee_
_Society_
_St Stephen's Review_
_The Penny Illustrated Paper_
_The Pictorial World_
_The Sydney Bulletin_
_Puck_
_The Daily Graphic_
_The Graphic_
_Black and White_
_Pick-me-up_
_The Illustrated London News_
_The Sketch_
_The Pall Mall Budget_
_Punch_
_The English Illustrated Magazine_

_St Paul's_
_The Magazine of Art_
_The Strand_
_The Bohemian Magazine_
_The Daily Chronicle_
_The Minute_
_The Idler_
_The Savoy_
_The Mascot_
_Munsey's Magazine_
_The Century Magazine_
_The King_
_The Tatler_
_The Pall Mall Magazine_
_The Studio_
_The Jewish Chronicle_




THE ILLUSTRATIONS


                   PHIL MAY'S ANNUAL, Summer 1892.
            _London Central Publishing and Advertising Co._

[Illustration to 'Charles Dickens at Gadshill' Portraits of Sala, Mark
Lemon, W. M. Thackeray, John Leech.
Drawn at Rule's Restaurant.]

[Illustration: 'Wot's the row up de court, Bill?'
'Bob Smith was kissing my wife,
and 'is old woman caught him.']

[Illustration: 'Dont't disturb yourself, mum;
there's nothing in it that'll smash.']

[Illustration: Act 1: 'Wait for me'
Act 2: Waited.]

[Illustration: A FACT
Welsh Farmer: 'Curate, I suppose?'
Dean (who is about to be made Bishop, but who always travels
third class): 'I was once a curate, my friend.'
Welsh Farmer: 'Drink, I suppose?']


                        A Political Argument.
                    By courtesy of the Committee
                   of the Leeds City Art Gallery.

[Illustration.]



                    PHIL MAY'S ANNUAL, Winter 1892.
                           _Walter Haddon._

[Illustration: 'What's 'e done, Governor?'
(May did a parody of this with a portrait of his publisher,
Walter Haddon, and called it '_Who's 'e done_, Governor?')]

[Illustration: TYPES I HAVE MET, Paris Fruit-seller.]

[Illustration: 'Yes, I always keep a good cigar.'
'Why don't you smoke 'em?']

[Illustration: Count Von Moltke.]

[Illustration: SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE
'Our Willie's 'ad 'is neck washed.']

[Illustration: 'Oh, please Sir, will you 'old 'im a minute
while I blow my nose?']


                         PHIL MAY'S A.B.C.
                      _Leadenhall Press 1897_.

[Illustration: Initials from PHIL MAY'S A.B.C.]


                         PHIL MAY'S ANNUAL,
                    Winter 1893. _Walter Haddon_.

[Illustration: _Scene: Restaurant in the Strand_
The Major (to celebrated music-hall artist): 'By jove, Miss Dashwood,
I really believe you could play Ophelia as well as any of 'em.'
C.M.H.A: 'Yes, and I've got a new reading of _that_ part. _She_ wasn't
_mad_, you know; _she_ was boozed.']

[Illustration: Gladstone.]

[Illustration: A PLANTATION DANCE.]

[Illustration: 'Mos' 'strornary thing! a'most shertain th' was shome
coffee in it.']

[Illustration: A Bit of Newlyn.]


                         PHIL MAY'S ANNUAL,
                    Winter 1894. _Walter Haddon_.

[Illustration: GIDDY
'Hang it all; let's be gay. Come and find the phonograph']

[Illustration.]


               One of a series of pen-and-ink studies,
        from the original drawing in the author's collection.

[Illustration.]


                       PHIL MAY'S SKETCHBOOK.
                      _Chatto & Windus_ 1895.

[Illustration: 'Deuced Funny!'
Portraits of Melton Prior, war correspondent, and A.C. Corbould, PUNCH
artist]

[Illustration: At 'Appy 'Ampstean on Easter Monday]

[Illustration:'AMMERSMITH
'What sort of a stone do yer call that as yer've got in yer ring,
'Arriet?'
'Well, dunno; but my chap says as 'e thinks as it's a 'Ammersmith.']


               Studies of 'Drunks': preliminary sketches
               for a drawing in PUNCH, August 10th, 1895.
          By courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum.

[Illustration.]


                         Coster Girl's Head.
                By courtesy of Carmichael Thomas, Esq.

[Illustration.]


               Skating by Torchlight on the Serpentine.
                      _The Daily Graphic_ 1895.

[Illustration.]



                         PHIL MAY'S ANNUAL,
                    Winter 1895. _Walter Haddon_.

[Illustration: Flotsam and Jetsam]



                      PHIL MAY'S GUTTERSNIPES.
                      _Leadenhall Press_ 1896.

[Illustration: Title Page of PHIL MAYS, GUTTERSNIPES 1896.]

[Illustration: Honey-pots.]

[Illustration: Little Mothers.]

[Illustration: WHAT BETTSY-ANN MAKES OF IT
Departing guest: 'Will you call me a cab?'
Betsy-Ann: 'Ansom, Four-Wheeler or Mover, Sir?'
(A TIMES correspondent suggests that the horseless carriage
be called an 'Auto-Mover').]

[Illustration: Whip-Behind.]

[Illustration: Lost.]

[Illustration: Boy: 'No? Why don't you never treat yourself
to no luxuries, Guvner?'.]

[Illustration: Water-works.]

[Illustration: Gutter Gymnasts.]

[Illustration: Shuttlecock.]

[Illustration: A Day in the Country.]


                 'The Travel Diary of Toby, MP.' PUNCH,
                           October 17th, 1896.

[Illustration: Courtyard of the Hotel de France, Montreuil.]


                               EAST LONDON
                by Walter Besant. _Chatto & Windus_ 1902.

[Illustration: An August Bank-Holiday in the East End.]


                  Petticoat Lane, PUNCH ALMANACK. 1898.

[Illustration.]


                     Interior of an Italian Church,
          from the original drawing in the author's collection.

[Illustration.]


                          A French Peasant, 1901.
          from the original drawing in the author's collection.

[Illustration.]


                        PUNCH, July 30th, 1902.

[Illustration: 'I say, Billy, 'ere's a gipsy! Let's 'ave our fortins
telled!']


                SKETCHES FROM PUNCH. Punch Office 1903.


[Illustration: MALAPROPOS
Mrs Snobson (who is doing a little slumming for the first time and wishes
to appear affable, but is at a loss to know how to commence
conversation): 'Town very empty!']

[Illustration: HARD LINES
'Just my luck! This sort of thing always happens just when I'm invited
to a party!']

[Illustration: FELINE IMPRESSIONS
Chemist (to battered female, who is covered with scratches):
'The cat', I suppose?
Battered Female: 'No. Another Lydy!']

[Illustration: A REJOINDER
'Arry (whose 'Old Dutch' has been shopping, and has kept him waiting a
considerable time): 'Wot d'yer mean, keepin' me standin' abaat 'ere like
a bloomin' fool?'
'Arriet; 'I can't 'elp the way yer stand, 'Arry!']

[Illustration: NOT WHAT HE MEANT
Superior 'Arry: 'Cabbie! To the--aw--The Prince of Wales's.'
Cabbie: 'Marlbro' 'Ouse, My Lord?']


                       A Portrait of Himself, 1894.
                  By courtesy of M. H. Spielmann, Esq.

[Illustration.]




[End of _Phil May_ by James Thorpe]
