One last post about American illustrator J. Augustus Knapp. Egypt (1900) is a slim volume by Laura G. Collins that presents a poetic remembrance of an Egyptian visit with embellishments and drawings by Knapp. The text is hand-written in that peculiar tree-branch style you often find in 19th-century literature, while Knapp’s illustrations look to have been copied from photos; the Sphinx is a familiar enough sight for us to see that the artist takes liberties with the perspective. I have a couple of Victorian photo-books of views of the world featuring Egyptian scenes that are almost identical to some of these. An odd volume with a stylish binding that includes Knapp’s monogram under the author’s name.
