Richard Newton

Richard Newton (19 May 1777 – 8 December 1798) was an English caricaturist, miniaturist and book illustrator.

Life and works

Newton's defence of habeas corpus, 1798Born in London, Newton published his first caricature at thirteen. His work included caricatures expressing the English prejudice of the Scots as lean and hungry opportunists. He worked for radical publisher William Holland, producing anti-slavery works among his output, as well as "rude assaults" against Napoleon and the royal family. In 1794, Holland published an edition of Laurence Sterne's A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy with twelve plates by Newton.

Newton produced nearly 300 single sheet prints of which the British Museum's collection includes more than half. M. Dorothy George's "Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires Preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum" lists 98 prints by Newton.

Newton died of typhus in London at the age of 21.

Books illustrated by Richard Newton

Henry Fielding Tom Jones (1799) Laurence Sterne A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy (1794)