Edmund Evans

Edmund Evans was born in Southwark in 1826. In 1840 he was apprenticed to Ebenezer Landells. In May 1847 he set up as a wood-engraver on his own account. The first colour engravings made by Evans were the eight illustrations to Ida Pfeiffer’s Visit to the Holy Land, published by Ingram, Cooke & Co. in 1852. They were printed in three colours: brown, pale blue, and pale yellow. Evan’s colour-printing business was established when he was asked by Ingram, Cooke to start printing book covers in three colours for the New Railway Bookstall Market. Around 1865 Evans began printing the ‘Toy Books’ which made him the most famous printer-publisher of children’s books of the late Victorian period. Walter Crane and Randolph Caldecott were two of Evans’s most successful illustrators. Crane grew as an artist under Evans’s supervision and guidance, whilst Caldecott, though established by the time he met Evans, had not illustrated any children’s books in colour. Edmund Evans died in 1905 at Ventnor, Isle of Wight, and is buried in Ventnor Cemetery. By then, his methods of colour reproduction had been replaced by newer, cheaper, and infinitely less attractive processes; but the colour-printing business he founded and handed over in 1898 to his sons amalgamated with W.P. Griffith Ltd., and is still in function.

Works included are:

1. The Floral Birthday Book: Flowers and Their Emblems, with Appropriate Selections From the Poets. With 368 illustrations engraved and printed in colours by Edmund Evans. [1867].

 2.  British Ferns and Their Allies: Comprising the Ferns, Club-mosses, Pepperworts, and Horsetails. Illustrations, printed in colours by Evans. [Between 1887 and 1888].

 3. British Butterflies: Figures and Descriptions of Every Native Species: with an account of butterfly development, structure, habits, localities, mode of capture and preservation. Illustrations printed in colours by Edmund Evans. [1889]

 4. Wild Flowers : where to find, and how to know them : with remarks on the economical & medicinal uses of our native plants by Spencer Thomson. Illustrations from designs by Noel Humphreys. Printed by Edmund Evans. [between 1868 and 1878]

 5. The story of the Robins by Mrs. Trimmer ; with illustrations printed in colours by Edmund Evans, from original designs.