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Author’s response to review of The Diary of J. J. Grandville and the Missouri Album: The Life of an Opposition Caricaturist and Romantic Book Illustrator in Paris under the July Monarchy.

Dear Ms. Snay,

Thank you for your lengthy and thoughtful review of my book on the diary of J. J. Grandville.

There are a few things, however, that I would like to clarify:

As for the provenance of the album, it more than likely came from the same Grandville relatives who have been selling off a veritable treasure trove of original Grandville documents; there is no need to bring up the shady art dealings of the Nazi era and later.

It would, indeed, have been regrettable if I hadn’t included a reproduction of an album page in its entirety. But I did: figure 36 on page 82 reproduces the first page of the album which contains drawings ranging in date from 1830 to 1834.

I, too, was disappointed in the quality of the illustrations. But I consider myself extremely lucky that the book was published at all. We all know how difficult it is to get any scholarly book published these days, let alone one with over 200 illustrations. Suffice it to say that I had to go through six other publishers before Fairleigh Dickinson agreed to publish the book without cutting back on the number of illustrations. The additional expense of color reproductions was out of the question (the color reproduction on the cover was a pleasant surprise and gives a very good idea of how the album pages appear). It should be added that my book was one of the very last to be published through Associated University Presses, the consortium to which Fairleigh Dickinson University Press belonged.

Your review remains a solid one. I cannot thank you enough for your time and very commendable effort.

Clive F. Getty