Loups (bal de L'Opéra)

1852

Breaking with the magazine and cheap editions

Four years after taking part in the Salon Doré breaks with the magazine and from then on works on the illustration of cheap editions.

1853

A commission for Byron and British publishers

In 1853 Doré is asked to illustrate the works of Lord Byron; this commission is followed by additional work for British publishers, including a new illustrated Bible.

1853

The Philippson Bible with his illustrations

In 1853 a Bible in Ludwig Philippson's translation, with illustrations by Doré, is published.

1854

“The History of Holy Russia” amid the Crimean War

With the outbreak of the Crimean War Doré's first independent album-book appears — an anti-Russian war pamphlet, the “Picturesque, Dramatic and Caricatural History of Holy Russia”, in 500 drawings with commentary drawn from the texts of Nestor, Karamzin, Ségur and other historians.

1854–1855

Rabelais, “The Parisian Menagerie” and Balzac

In 1854 Doré's illustrations to “Gargantua and Pantagruel” appear, together with an album of lithographs, “The Parisian Menagerie”, grotesque sketches of Paris life; in 1855 his drawings for Balzac's “Droll Stories” are published.

1856

Twelve plates for “The Legend of the Wandering Jew”

In 1856 Doré produces twelve folio-size illustrations of “The Legend of the Wandering Jew”, a short poem by Pierre-Jean de Béranger derived from a novel by Eugène Sue of 1845; the series propagated longstanding antisemitic views of the time.