Joseph Grego - Writer and Editor

Writer and Editor

After a private education, Grego worked briefly at Lloyd's the underwriters. As an art journalist and author, he specialised as a writer and collector in the works of James Gillray, Thomas Rowlandson, George Morland, Charles Dickens and George Cruikshank, and was an acknowledged authority on all of them. Chiefly responsible for the edition of James Gillray’s ‘works’ (1873), and editing ‘Rowlandson the Caricaturist’ (1880), both cited as standard books of reference. He collected much material for a life of Morland, which he did not complete. In 1904, he published ‘Cruickshank’s Water Colours’ with reproductions in colour. In 1874, he compiled a volume of ‘Thackerayana;’ (600 sketches) (1875 suppressed – reissued 1898.)

Grego also edited Pear's Pictorial (1893–1906), wrote ‘History of Parliamentary Elections in the Old days, from the time of the Stuarts to Victoria’ (1886 & 1892) and edited Gronow's Reminiscences with repro-prints (1889); Vuilliers ‘History of Dancing’ (1898) ‘Pictorial Pickwickiana: Charles Dickens and his illustrators’ (1899) and Goldsmith’s ‘Vicar of Wakefield’, including Forster’s essay on the story (1903.).