The following list presents a list of all known basic arguments against the inclusion of visual images as illustrations in literary texts. For a chronological ordering, see the Timeline.
Please note: The following list provides initial findings of a continuing literature review. This review is primarily focused on European (especially German, French, and British) and North American literature from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century (a period in which the practice of book illustration thrived). The website will be periodically updated as new data emerges. We very much welcome any hints or corrections.
- Illustrations are redundant. First observed occurrence: Classical Antiquity [?].
- Illustration violates the Second Commandment. First observed occurrence: [?].
- Illustrations contradict the text. First observed occurrence: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Letter to Coindet, dated December 7, 1760.
- Illustrations are frivolously luxurious ornaments. First observed occurrence: [Renaissance (?)]; Voltaire, Letter to Claude-Philippe Fyot de la Marche, dated 8 October 1761.
- Illustrations are merely included for commercial gain. First observed occurrence: Golden Age of French Illustration, 1764/1765.
- Illustrations make literary works more quickly outdated. First observed occurrence: August Wilhelm Schlegel, “Über Zeichnungen zu Gedichten und John Flaxman’s Umrissen,” 1799.
- Illustrations carry no meaning in themselves. First observed occurrence: Walter Scott, The Bride of Lammermoor, 1819.
- Illustrations limit the reader’s imagination. First observed occurrence: Charles Lamb, “To Samuel Rogers, Esq.,” 1833.
- Illustrations excessively incite the imagination. First observed occurrence: Barwell, “Early Education,” 1834.
- Illustrations only convey external and superficial aspects of the literary texts. First observed occurrence: John Holmes (anonymously), “Illustrated Books,” 1844.
- Illustrations undermine intellectual pursuits. First observed occurrence: William Wordsworth, “Illustrated Books and Newspapers,” 1846.
- Illustrations unduly privilege or accentuate beauty. First observed occurrence: Charlotte Brontë, Letter to W.S. Williams, dated March 11, 1848.
- Illustrations emphasize the wrong scenes in the text. First observed occurrence: Charles Dickens, “Book Illustrations,” 1867.
- Illustrations are an obstacle to the development of modern realist fiction. First observed occurrence: Tsubouchi Shōyo, Essence of the Novel (Shosetsu shinzui), 1885-86.
- Illustrations undermine literature’s duty to be pictorial. First observed occurrence: Tsubouchi Shōyo, Essence of the Novel (Shosetsu shinzui), 1885-86.
- Illustrations distract readers from the text. First observed occurrence: William Dean Howells, A Hazard of New Fortunes, 1889.
- Illustrations visualize things intentionally not said in the text. First observed occurrence: Sidney Fairfield, “The Tyranny of the Pictorial,” 1895.
- Illustrations ignore the text’s perspective of focalization. First observed occurrence: Henry James, “Preface to The Golden Bowl,” 1909.
- Illustrations provide excessive clarification of the text. First observed occurrence: Franz Kafka, Letter to Kurt Wolff, dated October 25, 1915.
- Illustrations interfere with the dialogue between author and reader. First observed occurrence: John Harthan, The History of the Illustrated Book, 1981.
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