The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 2 — Reading Companion

The Hoax as Performance

The opening chapter, “The Artistic Joke,” is a masterclass in staged deception. Furniss describes how he manufactured a painting in the style of the Venetian school, complete with a fake catalogue entry and a carefully managed private view. The joke relies on the audience’s willingness to be fooled: “the R.A.’s took it” with good humour, and a critic wrote a serious review of the forgery. Furniss treats the hoax not as malice but as a form of theatre, where the caricaturist’s skill in mimicry is turned against the art establishment. The episode reveals his method: he observes the conventions of a situation—here, the reverence for Old Masters—and then subverts them with a meticulously executed parody.

Transatlantic Transit

Furniss’s voyage to America in “Confessions of a Columbus” is a catalogue of discomforts and curiosities. He notes the “Atlantic Greyhound” steamer, the Irish doctor’s remedies, and the “floating flower show” of a bouquet sent to a fellow passenger. The journey is structured as a series of vignettes: a bath shared with a bishop, a chess game with Edward Lloyd, and a superstition about fiddles. Furniss’s eye for the absurd is sharpest when describing the American pilot’s “red tape” and the “bribery” required to land. The chapter moves from shipboard to Washington, where he is “interviewed” by a sporting editor and observes a filibuster in the House of Representatives. The pace is breathless, mirroring the “America in a Hurry” he encounters.

Adelaide’s Unwelcoming Shore

The Australian section opens with a vivid set-piece: the landing at Adelaide. Furniss describes the “rough roadstead,” the “steam launches” bound with rope fenders, and the “green sea” that soaks passengers as they are hoisted onto the jetty. He contrasts this with the more convenient harbours of Melbourne and Sydney, and notes the “free and compulsory” sea bath. The journey to the city is a trial of poor trains and dangerous level crossings, where “fatalities are common and excite little notice.” Furniss’s tone is wry, not indignant; he treats the ordeal as a local custom. The chapter then shifts to the Zoological Gardens, where the guinea-pig house is a “doll’s house” with a school sign—a miniature joke that echoes the larger hoax of the opening.

Platforms and Unrehearsed Effects

“Platform Confessions” turns to Furniss’s career as a lecturer. He recounts his first platform appearance, the struggle with a shirt, and a bluebottle that disrupts his performance. The chapter is built around mishaps: a chairman who fails to appear, a lanternist who goes out, and Sir William Harcourt’s exit. Furniss categorises chairmen as “ideal,” “political,” or “ignorant,” each type producing a different kind of disaster. The structure is anecdotal, with each paragraph a self-contained comic scene. Furniss’s voice is that of a seasoned performer who knows that the best material comes from things going wrong. The chapter ends with a list of “chestnuts”—old jokes—that he refuses to tell, a final nod to the artifice of his craft.

Furniss’s confessions are less a linear autobiography than a series of sketches, each built around a single image or anecdote. Readers will find the most pleasure in the set-pieces—the hoax, the landing, the lecture mishap—where his caricaturist’s eye for the telling detail is given full play. The volume rewards those who read it as a gallery of comic scenes rather than a continuous narrative.

Reading about Furniss’s rough landing in Adelaide, I felt that familiar ache of travel—the gap between the imagined arrival and the actual one. It put me in mind of how King Arthur’s story must have felt to medieval listeners: all that promised glory, and then the messy, human reality. There’s a quiet comfort in that mismatch, I think. Historic Tales: The Romance of Reality. Vol. 14 (of 15), King Arthur (2) — Context and Discussion feels like an old friend for that same wistfulness.