1879-1880: Farny’s “Summerland Sketches” Illustrations

In July of 1879, Lippincott’s Magazine of Popular Literature and Science began a series of Farny’s sketches, a bunch of them, that accompanied an article titled “Summerland Sketches or Rambles in the Backwoods of Mexico and Central America”. Written by “physician, naturalist and secularist,” Felix L. Oswald, his article spanned twelve chapters of the magazine, from July 1879, Volume 24, through June 1880, Volume 25. Also in 1880, the serialized article was published in book form under the same name and with the same images; the book can be viewed on Archive.org.

While the series spanned twelve chapters, Farny’s work seems to appear in only the first eight chapters, as I couldn’t find his signature in any images after chapter eight.

Note that not all of the images in the first eight chapters show Farny’s signature, but sometimes the book scans showed them on one image, while the magazine scans showed them on other images. Sometimes the book cropped images that might have otherwise shown the signature. I feel pretty comfortable that all the ones below were *likely* by Farny. The book’s title page credits Henry Farny and Hermann Faber for the illustrations, so maybe it was Hermann Faber who complete the latter chapters.

Despite all the qualifications above, there are a few images, such as The Tuxpano in Chapter IV, page 407, that have a mark that suggests it is neither Farny nor Faber. In my non-expert opinion, the mark does not seem consistent with an etcher’s mark either. So, I have no included such images in the analysis below.

1) Here are seven Chapter One, SONORA, images, with the page numbers from Lippincott’s July 1879 issue, along with their corresponding book page numbers.

2) Here are six Chapter Two, COLIMA images, with the page numbers from Lippincott’s August 1879 issue, along with their corresponding book page numbers:

3) Here are five Chapter Three, THE LAKE-REGION-OF-JALISCO images, with the page numbers from Lippincott’s September 1879 issue, along with their corresponding book page numbers:

4) Here are five Chapter Four, THE WESTERN SIERRAS images, with the page numbers from Lippincott’s October 1879 issue, along with their corresponding book page numbers:

5) Here are six Chapter Five, THE SIERRA MADRE, images, with the page numbers from Lippincott’s November 1879 issue, along with their corresponding book page numbers:

6) Here are seven Chapter Six, LA TIERRA FRIA, images, with the page numbers from Lippincott’s December 1879 issue, along with their corresponding book page numbers:

7) Here are seven Chapter Seven, THE VALLEY OF OAXACA, images, with the page numbers from Lippincott’s January 1880 issue, along with their corresponding book page numbers. Lippincott’s Volume 25 began in January of 1880:

8) Here are six Chapter Eight, THE DELTA OF THE SUMASINTA RIVER, images, with the page numbers from Lippincott’s February 1880 issue, along with their corresponding book page numbers. The first image of chapter 8, not included below, is clearly marked Faber, not Farny, and may mark the beginning of the illustration hand-off to Faber:

Why did Farny stop illustrating this series of articles? The reason could have been that he had begun producing etchings for a comic opera, “The Doctor of Aleantara” (Apr 03, 1880, Cincinnati Enquirer, page 4, col2) as well as drawings for the upcoming Teachers Dream book (April 17, 1880, Cincinnati Commercial, page 6, col6) and more images for Lippincotts, but I have yet to confirm what drawings those might have been.