Inventions

This is a collection of the comic fantasies of the great English artist William Heath Robinson (1872-1944) whose name passed into the English language during his lifetime. Most people know of and love his elementary mechanical world - ancient wooden cogwheels, intricate pulleys, fragile gantries, ingenious tunnels, magnets, and steam kettles kept on the boil by a lighted candle or two; the whole enterprise held together by knotted string and operated by serious workmen with a sprinkling of soberly top-hatted company directors in charge. Heath Robinson's world is now crystallized for all time, so long as machines remain machines and human beings need reminding that that is all they are. This volume covers the whole field of Heath Robinson's comic work in peace and war, from his first mocking anti-German propaganda in World War I down to World War II during which he died. An introduction tells the story of his life.