He listening with his spectacles thrust up …, 1928

The collection contains approximately 2188 drawings, paintings, prints and proofs of original art created from a variety of techniques including aquatint, chalk, crayon, pen and ink, pencil, watercolor as well as engravings, etchings and lithographic prints. Collection also contains publication proofs and sheets from published versions. Illustrations are chiefly for fiction genres for monographs but also include serials, cartoons, comic books, newspapers, children's books, travel books, history books, manuals, games, advertising, greeting cards, teaching cards and gifts.

Illustrators include Frederick Barnard, Georgiana Bowers, C.E. Brock, H.M. Brock, R.H. Brock, Gordon Browne, Hablot Knight Browne, Randolph Caldecott, Edmund G. Caldwell, Muriel H. Carré, George Cruikshank, Robert Cruikshank, Henry Funiss, Christine Hammond, John Leech, Joseph Meadows, Alan Odle, Monro S. Orr, Fred Pegram, Willy Pogány, W.H. Pyne, Arthur Rackham, Charles Robinson, W. Heath Robinson, G.D. Rowlandson, Ernest H. Shepard, Clarkson Stanfield, Edmund Sullivan, Hugh Thomson, F.H. Townsend, Fritz Wegner, M.V. Wheelhouse, and Ellen Whitehead.