William Hamilton: Advice to a Revolutionary

An original New Yorker cartoon by William Hamilton was sold on eBay in January, fifty-four years after its publication. A family is seen seated at the dinner table:

"But, darling, many very successful young revolutionaries—our own

Thomas Jefferson among them—dressed for dinner."

William Hamilton

Original art

The New Yorker, January 9, 1971, p. 31

Hamilton handles all the details of upper class life exquisitely. 

"But, darling, many very successful young revolutionaries—our own

Thomas Jefferson among them—dressed for dinner."

William Hamilton

Original art

The New Yorker, January 9, 1971, p. 31

Verso

Verso detail

"But, darling, many very successful young revolutionaries—our own

Thomas Jefferson among them—dressed for dinner."

William Hamilton

The New Yorker, January 9, 1971, p. 31

"But, darling, many very successful young revolutionaries—our own

Thomas Jefferson among them—dressed for dinner."

William Hamilton

The New Yorker, January 9, 1971, p. 31

William Hamilton
eBay listing ended January 31, 2025

https://www.ebay.com/itm/267139718384?_skw=William+Hamilton+Yorker&itmmeta=01JR6D9P0V00W247BMWA2DYPT2&hash=item3e32c49cf0:g:LV8AAOSwpYJngCgH&itmprp=enc%3AAQAKAAAA8FkggFvd1GGDu0w3yXCmi1do4E6zW155wuJruJVA%2FKrng3cx506%2B1m6ADGfrMTTyfX5dkw%2BBuLayvccVhBTGO0PAIrmL6dOliX9qh2607FkHdg8T6knPB

LfbCd%2BdZwqBdEca0HRA3ULZapixYuTvtiVVX81PNn4lkiZn%2FPINMUYXaSx02TrK9gYyYxneqWamdNRq8x4e6rIMH6xKTDz08KLbKUZd%2BkXaHnD7l43l8wiMmrH1oy8pEY7zuRkn%2BQ6TzXcYrvpgz%2Fm5%2Fs%2B0NNESMdlGaggFXp9JxrqJd56L9AQywc4GXCLmht8QVLTb%2FWjL9A%3D%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR8Tgps3BZQ

William Hamilton
eBay item description

[End of eBay listing]

"But, darling, many very successful

young revolutionaries—our own

Thomas Jefferson among them—

dressed for dinner."

William Hamilton

The New Yorker, January 9, 1971, p. 31

"But, darling, many very successful

young revolutionaries—our own

Thomas Jefferson among them—

dressed for dinner."

William Hamilton

Original art

The New Yorker, January 9, 1971, p. 31

With cartoons by Smilby and William Hamilton

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1971-01-09/flipbook/030/

Smilby, by the way, was the pen name of Francis Wilford-Smith (1927-2009). Tax day falls on April 15, but cartoons about contentious audits are good year round.

Smilby

The New Yorker, January 9, 1971, p. 30

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Smilby: Breakfast Reading

Dick Buchanan has gone into his vast Cartoon Clip Files and found a vintage Valentine's Day cartoon from Punch by Smilby (1927-2009). Smilby is a pen name for British cartoonist Francis Wilford-Smith. Dick writes, "In America, his cartoons appeared in the New Yorker, the Saturday Evening Post, and Esquire. In 1960 he began a successful relationship with Playboy magazine, for which he produced more than 350 full-page color cartoons."

Smilby
Punch, February 12, 1958, page 232

Scan by Dick Buchanan

Note:  This is Dick Buchanan's fifty-second contribution to Attempted Bloggery, so at last we are playing with a full deck. Now on to the jokers. Dick, of course, maintains the peerless Dick Buchanan Cartoon Clip Files which he gradually has been turning into a digital archive. He also contributes regularly to Mike Lynch Cartoons, most recently a post entitled "From the Dick Buchanan Files: Even More Cops and Robbers Cartoons 1939 - 1970." Mike calls Dick "the great magazine cartoon connoisseur of our time." I second the motion.

Attempted Bloggery seeks works published and unpublished by Smilby that are new to the internet.

Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Valentine's Day

Smilby

Punch

Dick Buchanan

Attempted Bloggery's Well-Read Index

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Punch Cartoonists in Space

In 1955, A Century of Punch Cartoons was published. It seems the venerable British humor magazine was publishing color cartoons about space exploration in the 1950's, well before Sputnik. No one knew precisely what space exploration would look like back then, so cartoonists were free to imagine it.

An eBay seller is selling a single page from the book with two color cartoons. They are by George Sprod and Smilby.

George Sprod recognized that space travel would continue to face daunting technical problems. Fortunately, the English seem especially well-equipped to deal with those.

George Sprod, "Ah well, thank goodness we still have our sense of humour." Punch, 1952.

Is it my imagination, or did Smilby's spaceship land upside-down?

Smilby, "You know, this is going to knock the bottom right out of the science-fiction market." Punch, 1954.

Williams, R. E., Ed. A Century of Punch Cartoons. New York:  Simon and Schuster, 1955.

Page from A Century of Punch Cartoons, eBay Item Listing

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=181099714999&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1123

Page from A Century of Punch Cartoons, eBay Item Description

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=181099714999&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1123

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