Eustace Tilley

Common card · No. 387525

Eustace Tilley is a caricature that appeared on the cover of the first issue of The New Yorker in 1925 and has appeared on the cover in various forms of every anniversary issue of the magazine except 2017. He was not initially named, but acquired the name from Corey Ford in subsequent issues as part of a fictional magazine history backstory included to fill the early issues of the magazine. The original cover, showing Tilley examining a butterfly through his monocle, was drawn by Rea Irvin, but a younger and more modern-looking version of him as drawn by Johan Bull in subsequent months appeared throughout the magazine in its early years. This later version was given the name Tilley and subsequently the original cover was also declared to be Tilley. Because of the cover's prominence, almost all of the references to Tilley in the press discuss the Irvin version. Irvin drew three versions of the masthead artwork that featured Tilley in 1925 and 1926. Irvin's third version from 1926 was not...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Rea Irvin, Public domain