Illustrated books enjoyed great popularity in Britain in the second half of the nineteenth century. There was such a demand for them that by 1860 an artistic "school" known as the Sixties Illustrators can be identified. Myles Birket Foster was the most influential artist whose work helped to establish the Sixties style and whose books were snapped up by the public as soon as they appeared in print.

Myles Birket Foster Sr. and his wife Ann were living in North Shields, Northumberland, when Myles Birket Foster Jr., the sixth of the Fosters' seven children, was born on 4 February 1825. The family members were Quakers, and his father could trace his Foster ancestors back to the seventeenth century, when the family held property at Cold Hesledon in County Durham and at Hebblethwaite Hall, near Sedbergh in Cumbria. Despite the family's long association with the north of England, they moved to London...