For more than 30 years until his death in 1797, the statesman and writer Edmund Burke was a powerful voice on the great political issues of late 18th-century Britain. The broad range of his interests, as well as his Irish origins and his Catholic connections, made Burke a favourite target of such vitriolic and sometimes scurrilous caricaturists as Gillray, Rowlandson, Dent, and Sayers. This book follows and sheds light on Burke's political, literary, and personal life by examining a wide selection of the caricatures in which he was featured. Nicholas Robinson puts the caricatures in context by reconstructing the day-to-day episodes of social and parliamentary activity and by reviewing the debates that took place about such issues as the influence of the Crown, relations with America, the governace of India, and the French Revolution.
He shows how caricature was forged into a formidable political weapon, unravels the caricaturists' devices in representing the mannerisms and characteristics of Burke and his contemporaries, and investigates how Burke and other political figures, including Charles James Fox, William Pitt, George III, Lord North, and the Prince of Wales, fared as the subjects of the satirical prints.