The Drunkard's Children, a Sequel to The Bottle

A stark, cautionary series of eight plates from 1848, The Drunkard's Children is George Cruikshank’s own sequel to his earlier The Bottle, published by Tilt and Bogue. The artist-author traces the grim, inevitable ruin of a family across two generations, driven by the same relentless cycle of alcoholism. Cruikshank’s detailed, moralistic engravings make this a landmark in the early British comic-strip tradition, a raw social document from a master satirist turned temperance crusader.