Felix Octavius Carr Darley was an American illustrator and caricaturist. He was at his best in the reflection of American humor, the characterization of American types, the illustration of American scenes.
Background
Felix Octavius Carr Darley was born on June 23, 1822 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, where his parents had settled. He was the son of John Darley, a comedian, and his wife, Eleonora Westray, at one time a popular actress. Though both were natives of England they were married in the United States in 1800, while John Darley was serving as lieutenant of United States marines (Polyanthos, October 1806). Of their children, older than Felix, one became a teacher of music and another a portrait-painter.
Career
At fourteen Felix was an apprentice in a mercantile house in Philadelphia. In 1842 some of his sketches of Philadelphia street characters were brought to the attention of Thomas Dunn English and shortly reached the editor of the Saturday Museum, who published them.
Others appeared in Godey’s Magazine and the Democratic Review.
In 1843 J. R. Colon published in six monthly numbers a series, Scenes in Indian Life, by Darley, in outline, etched on stone.
About the same time the young artist was commissioned by Carey & Hart to make illustrations for their series, the Library of American Humorous Works.
His facility in caricature lent itself readily to the interpretation of the American humor of the forties.
There was in him, however, a more serious vein, already suggested by the Scenes in Indian Life, which showed itself in sketches made for his own pleasure to illustrate Sylvester Judd’s Margaret.
These drawings, not published until later, were shown to the managers of the American Art Union and so pleased them that after Darley’s removal to New York in 1848 they commissioned him to illustrate Irving’s Rip Van Winkle and Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The illustrations of these two tales appeared in 1849 and 1830 respectively. He also illustrated several of Irving’s works for G. P. Putnam with considerable success.
Elected to the National Academy of Design in 1852, Darley was thenceforth regularly represented at its annual exhibitions. “Illustrated by Darley” became a potent phrase in new-book advertisements.
The thirty Compositions in Outline from Judd’s Margaret, etched on stone like the Scenes in Indian Life, Rip Van Winkle, and Sleepy Hollow, were published in 1856. In these he “invited comparison with Moritz Retzsch, master of outline. He showed much of the grace of that German artist and vigor of characterization to which the other one does not quite attain”. In the same year he was commissioned to illustrate Cooper’s works for James G. Gregory.
The illustrations, reproduced on steel by bank-note engravers, were also published as The Cooper Vignettes (1862), in a large folio volume of India proofs.
He drew regularly for Appletons’ and Harper’s, continued his book illustrations, made vignettes for bank-notes, and drawings for large framing prints. Among these, “On the March to the Sea, ” engraved by A. H. Ritchie, was perhaps the best known. In 1868, after a visit to Europe, he published Sketches Abroad With Pen and Pencil.
Other outstanding work included illustrations of Longfellow, notably Evangeline, Dickens, and Shakespeare, the latter with Alonzo Chappell (1886).
Prolific and versatile as he was, he apparently did not permit the quantity of his production to mar its quality.
Personality
Prolific and versatile as he was, Darley apparently did not permit the quantity of his production to mar its quality. He was always a good draftsman, and had a keen appreciation of the picturesque and the dramatic. His genius was essentially American.
