The Page size is 24 x 32 and the book of 80 plates with captions and no accompanying text is remarkable for its time in that the story is coherent and well paced. The means for the telling are quite simple. The pacing of the drawings is astute and keeps the pace flowing. I also have a sneaking admiration for the finely honed visual exploration of Johnny Foreigner and his strange ways. Look for the great plate of the ugly mutt who steals the sausage. Doyle's pictures of the Police are suitably jittery.

 

The characterisation of the three travelling Englishmen is sustained and, although Doyle's pictorial invention dulls in places, and compositions are repeated without much thought, when only the costumes are changed, he draws the balance of tedium and danger for the entirety of the book, from the dizzy heights of the Alps, to the flat plains of the Rhine countryside.

 

The crowd scenes have a vigour and richness many illustrators of the period could not rival, much more lively than say Tenniel, and quite in the Cruikshank class of excellence. The scattering of objects on the last plate but one above is well done - half rebus, half Max Ernst. My copy of the book was used for a big exhibition organised by the British Council in Munich, with examples selected for photography by John Gage.