This series of etchings, featured as full-page illustrations in ‘In Search of the English Eccentric’, shows twelve 21st century characters presented using a late-18th century lens. The meticulously detailed cross-hatching, choice of paper and finish on each print is identical to that of Sydney Parkinson’s plates in his ‘Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas’ (1773). Just as ‘In Search of the English Eccentric’ is an attempt to apply a late-18th century understanding of a word (the word eccentric) to the early 21st century, these etchings present contemporary characters using a late-18th century technique. Parkinson also conveyed his subjects – mostly exotically unusual tribal chieftains – as familiar and unthreatening. In an identical sense the characters from ‘In Search of the English Eccentric’ are not made out to be alien or Other.

The numbering on each plate is congruous with that of Parkinson’s originals, so they can be inserted into ‘Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas’, which would allow this book to function as a hypertext.