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The demand for illustration in the rapidly expanding book market of the period from about 1830 was met by a generation of craftsmen versed in the skills that Bewick had perfected. It was not until between 1885 and 1890, when newer production methods for adding illustrations to books became common, that the wood-engraving began to fall out of commercial use. Although there was much hack work in this period, there was also a great deal of superb work, especially where the talents of creative artist and skill craftsman were combined. Behind much of the best work lies two names above all others, those of the Dalziel Brothers and of Edmund Evans.
The Dalziel Brothers were master craftsmen and printers who employed an army of wood-engravers, but who were so demanding in the standards they set that the work produced under their direction was technically superb. When combined with the designs supplied by the best artists of the day the resulting books are a joy to see. Amongst the artist supplying illustrations were many of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, such as D G Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones and John Everett Millais.
Rossetti, "The Palace of Art"; p119, Tennyson "Poems" 1857
and later such artists as John William North, John Tenniel [who did the original illustrations for Lewic Carroll's "Alice" books] and James A McNeil Whistler.
Whistler, "The Trial Sermon"; p585 "Good Words" 1862
Edmund Evans was responsible for applying wood-engraved blocks to the problem of colour printing. The result were the famous "Toy Books" of Walter Crane and of Randolf Caldecott and later the books of Kate Greenaway.
Kate Greenaway: "The Little Jumping Girls": p.51 "Marigold Garden": 1885
Although wood-engraving fell out of general use after about 1890, there was some occasionally use as in the "Fairy Books" of Andrew Lang, illustrated by H J Ford.
The closing years of the nineteenth century saw one last revival of the art. William Morris founded the Kelmscott Press in 1890 in order to promote fine printing. From this press issued forth fifty-three of the finest books of the period. This was both the start of the movement that would produce the artist dominated craft of the twentieth century and the last of the works combining the skills of artist illustrators to supply the designs and of craftsmen engravers to cut the blocks.