expand the business, adding steam engines, boilers and "many extra machines". From the late 1850s to the early 1860s, Evans produced the blocks and printed for, among others, books illustrated by William Stephen Coleman including, Common Objects of the Sea Shore, Common Objects of the Country, Our Woodlands, Heaths, and Hedges, and British Butterflies. The printing process used up to 12 colours and, as was his usual practice, a hand-press. During these years he also completed work on Foster's Bible Emblem Anniversary Book, and Little Bird Red and Little Bird Blue. In 1870, Evans printed In Fairyland, a Series of Pictures from the Elf-World, illustrated by James Doyle's brother Richard in which Doyle depicted fairies living "among birds, snails, butterflies and beetles as large as themselves", and Evans produced his largest wood-engravings for the volume. The 36 illustrations contained within are "often considered the masterpiece of Victorian illustration." During the 1860s and 1870s, he was employing up to 30 engravers. In 1864, Evans married Mary Spence Brown, Foster's niece, and the couple lived in Witley, Surrey. Foster was their neighbour, as was George Eliot. Commenting on his work, Evans said that it "kept me fully employed mind and body: I had to direct the engravers to the direction of the lines in the colour blocks, and the printers for the tones of the inks for printing, often mixing the inks". Whenever possible he visited Brighton, where he enjoyed the air. Process and techniques During the Victorian period, the art of book illustration gained popularity, supported through the work of wood engravers. Woodcut extended back centuries in Europe and further in Asia. Typically the parts to be printed in black were left in relief by the carver, allowing illustrations to be printed along with the text. Thomas Bewick developed the technique in the 18th century and "perfected the process that was used extensively throughout the 19th century, which necessitated the use of hardwood blocks and tools for metal engraving". The preferred method of relief engraving had been to work with the grain on the plank side of a block; however Bewick worked the end of the block and carved against the grain using a burin. Bewick passed his techniques to apprentices, including Landells, who in turn passed them to Evans. In the 1860s, Thomas Bolton developed a method for transferring a photographic image onto block, which enabled the engraver "to work