Inventing the Cave Man

'Canadian archivist Horrall explores the caveman character as conceived from its Victorian imaginings to the present. Juxtaposing his history against early man's Darwinian roots, Horrall presents a caveman whose history is one part contrived and one part idealized. Spread throughout the book are illustrations and newspaper clippings from popular Victorian publications from the 1800s and on, including Vanity Fair, the Dundee Evening Post, and Punch. Of note is Horrall's chapter on the missing link concept and how the caveman image was transformed by Tennyson Reed, the first artist to depict cavemen comically. Reed's illustrations gained a foothold in modern society, transforming the stereotypical aggressive Neanderthal that threatened Victorian mores into a powerless comical absurdity. This ability to embed a satirized caveman into the Victorian literary mind would forever alter its contemporary existence with society, leading to cartoons like enduringly humorous The Flintstones. Inventing the Cave Man presents both a serious yet academically humorous narrative of how early Victorians would have consumed and embellished on the caveman image. The book's entertaining and lighthearted approach to a subject that is easily overlooked within the canon of prehistory is a helpful one, allowing casual researchers an easy read.' J. Jocson-Singh, Leonard Lief Library, Lehman College CUNY, Choice connect, July 2018 Vol. 55, No. 11 -- .