Illustrations in books - aye or nay?

[Extollager]

Millais's illustrations for Trollope! One may view here the pictures for the novel I just finished reading recently.

Millais's illustrations for The Small House at Allington by Trollope

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Dickens novels would be less rich without the illustrations of Phiz and others:

I absolutely agree with that. If all illustrations were as good and as suited to their respective texts, I'd be saying it's a shame that not all novels are illustrated.

 

[Parson]

I can't help noting that all of the positive examples (AFAIR) are from books written at least in the first part of last century. --- I cannot think of any book that I've read of more recent vintage that has illustrations that have added much. Now Maps and schemetics are different for me, and often useful.

Edit: There are a few paperback covers which have added significantly to the enjoyment of the book. The edition of Andre Norton's Catseye that I read decades ago had a great cover that got me into the story.

 

[Bick]

It’s interesting that SFF short stories mostly came with illustrations in magazine publications, and some of the illustrations of the classic stories were great. And yet when anthologised or collected, the illustrations are rarely (never?) reproduced alongside the text. A shame! I remember reading A Sound Of Thunder by Bradbury in the original Planet Stories issue where it was published and thinking how great the old illustrations were. Its a copyright issue is it, or just too expensive? I’d definitely pay for an anthology with original magazine illustrations - how great would the Hall of Fame anthogies be then?!

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I imagine that it is, as you say, a copyright issue. As with stories, I think magazines pay only for the right to publish the art once and only exclusively for a certain period. After that, anyone who wanted to publish the illustrations would have to pay that artist for the right to do so. So both a copyright issue and a matter of expense. Plus the publication of an anthology might conflict with the art being published elsewhere. And a bunch of other possible complications. (Editor of anthology doesn't like the artwork the magazine art department commissioned. Artist becomes more in demand in the interim and naturally expects to be paid accordingly. Etc. etc.)

Though I agree that Hall of Fame anthologies with original magazine illustrations sound appealing.

 

[Joshua Jones]

I think I'm in the consensus that illustrations can be great if they match the subject well. Some of it depends on the target audience; for children's books, for example, they are virtually a necessity, while YA can benefit from them and adult could go either way. I think genre is also pretty relevant; illustrations seem to work better in fantasy, while schematics seem to make more sense in SF. Maps are genre specific as well; they seem to be very helpful in fantasy, but I can't see a space opera benefitting much from them.

I think the subject of the illustrations can be important and vary with genre a bit as well. I like having illustrations of the races featured in fantasy, but I am less interested in this in SF as I am interested in pictures of the tech in use, such as the protagonist's ship preparing to dock at a spaceport. Landscape shots can be quite useful in just about any genre, though.

 

[Toby Frost]

I think there are some books or stories that I specifically wouldn't want illustrated, at least in certain ways. Obviously, there are stories like Lovecraft's, where often the thing that would drive you mad if you saw it just looks like a blob with some tentacles when depicted on the page. There are also characters who aren't heavily described, and who I wouldn't want to see as images, particularly if interpreted by whatever the fashion of the time was.

One of the reasons that I like Tolkien's and Tove Jansson's illustrations for The Hobbit is their vagueness. There as much an invitation to imagine the rest of the details as they are a literal depiction of those details.

 

[Parson]

Maps are genre specific as well; they seem to be very helpful in fantasy, but I can't see a space opera benefitting much from them.

I did find the star maps in David Weber's Honor Harrington books to be useful. But they did suffer from the 2 dimensional view of a 3 dimensional system. He tried to show in spheres, which kinda worked.

 

[Extollager]

One of the reasons that I like Tolkien's and Tove Jansson's illustrations for The Hobbit is their vagueness. There as much an invitation to imagine the rest of the details as they are a literal depiction of those details.

Good point.

 

[Pedro Del Mar]

I like them simply because it gives me an impression of how another person imagines the subject of the illustration to compare against my own.

 

[Rodders]

But don't you find yourself using these images in your minds eye rather than your own?

 

[Extollager]

But don't you find yourself using these images in your minds eye rather than your own?

That depends. This can be a real problem. I personally would avoid Alan Lee's Lord of the Rings for that reason. On the other hand, I don't find it to be something bad in regard to some of the books I have mentioned in this thread.

I also wonder about the "mind's eye." I'm reasonably visual -- I have difficulties with some abstract language, and have cared about art since I was a kid (even as a very amateur artist) -- but I don't think that, when I read, I usually have detailed images in my mind. It's more elusive than that.

I do find that the images, and the voices, from the Lord of the Rings movies got in my way when I read it again afterwards, and didn't like that very much. On the other hand, since I suspect the miniseries, with Alec Guinness, of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy from 40 years ago is better than the novel, I would be happy to be reminded of the series if reading the book -- while realizing that I would likely imagine things in it differently if I'd never seen the series.

 

[Laura R Hepworth]

I think it depends on how/where the illustrations are used more than how well they are drawn. Sometimes certain areas within a book can really benefit from even just a simple illustration. Jasper Fforde has some great black/white illustrations in his Thursday Next books and in the Nursery Crimes series. Tolkien's own illustrations (and those of Alan Lee or John Howe) were also a beautiful addition. How many illustrations are another issue, unless its a children's book, I wouldn't want a book to be too heavily illustrated or it would begin to detract
instead of enhance.

 

[picklematrix]

Im actually I big fan of illustrations, and I wish more books used them. A good writer will paint a fairly vivid picture in my head with words alone, but illustrations can definitely help a little. I can't recall reading a book with pictures so bad that they made it worse, so I'd say they may be a good idea and appropriate in quite a few situations.
Some books of course are well known for their illustrations. The Edge Chronicles, for instance, are famous for their beautiful artwork.

 

[thaddeus6th]

There are some illustrations in the Stormlight Archives, and I quite like those.

One problem specific to e-books is that details, particularly on maps, can get swallowed up.

 

[BigBadBob141]

I enjoy a well drawn illustration, if done properly they can really enhance a books content, I recently read the collection of George R R Martin's hedge knight stories, set in the Game Of Thrones universe, the illustrations were really good, which helped make a good book even better!

 

[rscottb]

Personally, I don’t even pay much attention to how a character looks on the cover because it’s going to contradict how that character looks in “my head”. I used to look at “world” / city maps in the books but a lot of times “my world” I saw as I read would have north and south reversed, etc.

Now, when choosing a new book, the cover can be the reason I stop to learn more about the story. I just don’t “see” the cover characters face/look clearly.

 

[Mon0Zer0]

I love the Hobbit and Tolkien's drawings - same with his book Mr Bliss , and I love all those old Victorian books with illustrations in them. Many of the illustrations are often superfluous though - you can read the text without needing illustrations to get a picture of the scene.

I think there is potential for illustrations to be an essential part of the text. To serve as the mise-en-scene and concentrate the text on things that cannot be illustrated - sounds, smells, touch, interiority. Comic books are essentially illustrated stories, but I often find comic books to be low information compared to novels. An illustrated novel that balances integrates the immediacy of illustration with the high information of prose, is something I haven't really seen done in the west outside children's books. The Japanese have light novels which are essentially this - "All you need is Kill" filmed as "Edge of Tomorrow" started as a light novel. It's something Sim and I aspired to with our series, Metal Made Flesh.

 

[AE35Unit]

Yes, I like the illustrations in A Christmas Carol (oh to find an original!) And I always wanted an illustrated Lord of the Rings.

 

[AllanR]

My wip has four maps (digitally drawn) and a generated fractal (with the equation).