'Map of England. A Modern St. George & The Dragon', St. Step...

Estimate

£50 - £70

'Map of England. A Modern St. George & The Dragon', St. Stephen's Review, 1888, lithograph satirical map by William Mecham (under the pseudonym Tom Merry), 53 x 37cm. This map satirizes the Irish Home Rule crisis of 1886 and appeared two years later in the Conservative St. Stephen’s Review. "The Tory leader (Lord Salisbury as St George), successfully spears the dragon Gladstone (who in 1886 was the Liberal Prime Minister), shown with the forked tongue of Home Rule lolling from his mouth; other key figures in the crisis such as Parnell have been worked into his scaly flanks. . . . Although Gladstone himself was converted to the cause of Irish Home Rule he split his own party; the bill was defeated and Conservatives and Liberal Unionists swept to power in the ensuing general election." Bryars 2011a. The map accompanied a lengthy "commentary" in the St. Stephens Review, using characters from the Mad Hatter's Tea Party in Alice in Wonderland to satirize the fight; see Baynton-Williams 2015, 190.