Charles Keene was one of a small group of mid-Victorian draughtsmen, among them John Tenniel and George du Maurier, who was responsible for greatly improving the quality of British illustration during the 1860s and 1870s. Untrained, but with a Pre-Raphaelite devotion to studying from nature, Keene became the strongest black and white artist of his time, contributing not only to Punch, but to many of the other periodicals of the day such as Once a Week.

Keene obtained an international reputation and was widely admired in America and Europe. The American artist James McNeil Whistler described Keene as 'the greatest artist since Hogarth'. Edgar Degas owned his books and Camille Pissarro recommended him to his son Lucien.

. This book, which is the first to be written about Keene for nearly 50 years, deals with his relationships with other artists and with his gradual approach to the mastery of the ink line. It also attempts to set Keene in his proper context as a serious as well as a humorous artist and as a Victorian man of stature.