Much has been written about the importance of satirical print during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. However, it is only within the past few decades that historians have come to appreciate the value of caricatures as source material in their own right rather than view them as useful book illustrations. In this new work, N. G. Howe contributes to the growing number of caricature-based biographies, focusing on the relationship between Charles James Fox (1749–1806) and William Pitt the Younger (1759–1806), whose political careers coincided with the “Golden Age” (2) of caricature, defined here as between ca. 1780 and 1820. This period, Howe argues, witnessed the birth of a new generation of professional artists such as James Gillray, Thomas Rowlandson, and Isaac Cruikshank, who began using a range of different techniques to satirize the subjects of their work.

Howe makes extensive use of caricature collections held by the British Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the Lewis Walpole Library, and the Yale Center for British Art. Of these, fifty plain and colored examples have been carefully selected and reproduced. It is unfortunate, however, that some of these reproductions are rather small, meaning that some of the detail and text of the images are lost.

Charles James Fox began his political career in 1768. In opposition for most of his career, he spent much of his time in the House of Commons facing his political rival William Pitt the Younger. Pitt first entered Parliament in 1781, before becoming prime minister of Great Britain in December 1783. Opposites in terms of their politics, personalities, and appearance, Fox (2) and Pitt (6) were a “gift” to the satirists of the day, according to Howe.

In the first chapter, Howe highlights the importance of the “stock image,” showing how depictions of Fox evolved over the course of his career, each retaining elements of the previous phase for ease of audience recognition. In contrast, Pitt had very few stock images. At the beginning of his political career, much was made of Pitt's youth and inexperience. As his career progressed, he was frequently portrayed as being taller and thinner than those around him, with a long, pointed nose and an aloof expression. It was this depiction which came to be the most enduring stock image of Pitt. Between 1782 and 1806, Pitt appeared in 699 caricatures, second only to Fox, who featured in 1,061 during the same period. However, as Howe demonstrates in the second chapter, during the early part of his career, Pitt was more frequently portrayed alongside Fox than without him, and together they featured in a total of 370 prints. In examining the ways in which both Fox and Pitt were satirized in print, Howe argues that Pitt was generally depicted more sympathetically, regardless of the policies he proposed. In an age before photography, it was essential that both Fox and Pitt were instantly recognizable to audiences, and here the use of the stock image was most effective.

The role of satire during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries cannot be adequately studied without some consideration of its production, distribution, audience, and reception. As with all printed ephemera, establishing the audience and impact of caricatures can be problematic, something that Howe readily acknowledges. Caricatures were frequently used during election campaigns, and chapter 3 focuses on the Westminster election of 1784, which, Howe explains, can be viewed as “the first national election” (76). This chapter examines the way in which Fox was portrayed throughout the contest, often in comparison to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, who became notorious as a result of her canvassing on behalf of Fox. Although the caricaturists did their best to vilify both Fox and the duchess, these prints, Howe suggests, appear to have had little overall impact on the outcome of the election.

The political careers of Fox and Pitt coincided with not only the “Golden Age” of caricature but also an eventful period in British politics. As chapters 4 and 5 demonstrate, Pitt's first administration witnessed the East India Bill crisis of 1783–84, the Regency Crisis of 1788–98, and the French Revolution. During this period of political uncertainty, the rivalry between Fox and Pitt peaked, and the two men came to be seen as “emblems” (25) for their respective political factions. It is this period that, Howe argues, saw the emergence of the “modern party leader” (7) and the idea that politics and party hinged on the individual and the “cult of personality” (7) Building on the previous two chapters, the final chapter focuses on the turbulent 1790s and early 1800s. In this chapter, Howe examines religious and parliamentary reform, two of the most important political issues of the period, arguing that while both men were advocates of moderate reform, Fox's stance was vilified most. Here the legacies of Fox and Pitt are considered, with Howe showing that, even after their deaths in 1806, both men continued to appear in print, demonstrating their enduring appeal to satirists and audiences alike.

Overall, this work, based on Howe's 2011 doctoral thesis, is an important study of Fox and Pitt, two of the most influential politicians of their day. Through a carefully selected sample of the hundreds of caricatures in which they featured, this work shows how artists developed a range of new techniques to depict the actions and personalities of Fox and Pitt, helping to shape public perceptions of politics and politicians. However, considering the amount of work in examining the production and distribution of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century satire and caricatures that has been published since 2011, Howe might also have considered some of this more recent historiography, such as James Baker's The Business of Satirical Print in Late-Georgian England (2017). It is also surprising that Howe does not examine in greater detail the political affiliations of the satirists mentioned in his work. Nevertheless, this is an important contribution to the study of the role played by satire in the visual representation of British politics during the “Golden Age” of caricature, and deserves to be read widely.