Rose, Frederic William (sold)

Frederic William Rose (November 12, 1849 - January 3, 1915) was a politically conservative British satirist and caricature artist active in the late 19th century. There has been considerable debate regarding Rose's actual identity, due not to any attempt at secrecy, but rather at the commonality of the name. Nonetheless, recently book dealers Laurence Worms and Roderick Barron unearthed a great deal of new information about Rose and, apparently, we can anticipate an upcoming book. According to Worms, Rose was born to a well to do Paddington family of Scottish descent, the son of Major Hugo Monroe St. Vincent Rose of Glastullich and Frances Walrond Roberts. He was appointed as a clerk in the Legacy Duty office at Somerset House - where he was employed, in various positions, for the remainder of his working days. Rose married Catherine Rose Gilchrist and moved to London, where the Rose family lived at 9 Kensington Crescent before, in 1873, relocating to 4 Cromwell Crescent, where they remained. Rose traveled extensively throughout Europe and in 1885 published Notes on a Tour in Spain. In 1891 he divorced his wife on the grounds that she committed adultery - a rather humiliating and uncommon claim at the time. He wrote several other books and subsequently lost two of his sons in World War I. He died in London in 1915. In cartographic circles, Rose is best known for popularizing the caricature map in Europe. His most famous and influential work, while copied from Dutchman J. J. Van Brederode, is the 'Serio-Comic War Map', which represents late 18th century Russia as a grasping Octopus. Nonetheless, he also issued several other maps including another map of Europe entitled 'Angling in Troubled Waters' and variant of the Octopus map entitled 'John Bull and his Friends'. A less well known Rose map focuses on the British Isles and satirizes the 1880 Gladstone Government.