Simon Grennan will be presenting the work of the innovative Victorian cartoonist Marie Duval, whose extraordinary role in the history of cartooning is only just being rediscovered, thanks in part to a new book Grennan has co-authored with fellow comics and popular culture academics Roger Sabin and Julian Waite. Both a stage actress as well as an artist, Duval was uniquely placed to take advantage of the first appearance of a mass leisure culture by contributing to the weekly magazines that combined current affairs and theatrics with a focus on urban life.

The book, just published by Myriad, provides an entertaining visual account of the work of Duval as she struggled and succeeded in creating a new urban visual culture. It looks at key aspects of Victorian mass leisure industry, such as tourism, day-tripping, fashion, the theatre, art and the ‘season.’ Marie Duval offers an enticing glimpse of the exciting, strange and world-changing media environment of London in the last part of the nineteenth century.

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