Petroleum V. Nasby', had been writing a series of 'letters' that were published in the Blade and in separate volumes during and after the Civil War, satirising the slave-holding Confederate South and its Northern sympathisers.

The artist later wrote of his Champaign beginnings: "So long as I am able to remember anything, I shall never forget the happy days spent in the genial atmosphere of that little newspaper office, nor the valuable experience I gained there".

When Hopkins arrived at the offices of Scribner and Co. in New York, Holland was absent and the young cartoonist was received by the business partner, Roswell Smith, "with somewhat pompous and... rather puzzled cordiality".

[16] During the post-Civil War years the number of illustrated periodicals expanded rapidly, partly due to technological innovations relating to typesetting, printing and image reproduction.

[19] During this period the woodblock process of image reproduction was replaced by the introduction and development of commercial photo-engraving techniques, resulting in a more faithful representation of the original artwork.

[21][22] An early commission that Hopkins received was to provide sixteen chapter illustrations for Cervantes' The Adventures of the Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote de la Mancha (translated by Peter Motteux), published in 1870 by Hurst and Co. of New York.

On 11 September 1875 a cartoon sequence by Hopkins, titled 'Professor Tigwissel's Burglar Alarm', was published in The Daily Graphic, considered to be an early example of a comic strip in an American newspaper.

Carleton agreed to the idea and a deal was struck, with Hopkins to receive fifteen percent of the gross sales (with the first thousand copies to be exempt from the author's royalty).

Livingston Hopkins' A Comic History of United States was published by G. W. Carleton and Co. of New York in 1876, released "in good time" for the Centennial International Exhibition held in Philadelphia.

[30] A review of the book in the Portland Daily Press found much of the text lacking in comic effect: "Occasionally a page is enlivened by a bit of humour, but for the most part the volume is as dreary and not half as instructive as a patent office report".

In Traill's words: "I determined to make a desperate effort to engage and bring to Australia some one of the many clever comic draughtsmen whose work embellished various Yankee papers which we received regularly".

[39] Hopkins' final commission before leaving the United States was the illustrations for The Model Primer, a compilation of prose for children by Eugene Field and published by Frederick Tredwell of Brooklyn.

The following issue included a cartoon by Hopkins featuring caricatures of the colonial treasurer, James Watson, and prominent Sydney businessman Albert Elkington, who had recently been on opposite sides of a legal dispute in the Equity Court.

[50] In 1884, in addition to his routine work for The Bulletin, Hopkins provided illustrations for The Parsonage Girl: A Tale in Five Chapters, a short novel by Thomas Moser (published by Gibbs, Shallard and Co. of Sydney).

[52][53] In 1885 Hopkins' creative imagination produced an enduring image that evolved to symbolise and personify the colony of New South Wales and in later years, a figurative representation of the Australian nation as a whole.

[54][55] In February 1885 William Bede Dalley, as acting-premier of the colony, offered to send a detachment of New South Wales troops to the Sudan to support British forces in the suppression of the Mahdist uprising.

[56] After the British acceptance of Dalley's offer, a wave of patriotic enthusiasm became evident and a fund was established to receive public contributions, both monetary and in kind, in support of the expedition.

[57] On 4 March 1885, the day after the troops departed from Sydney, 10-year-old Ernest Lawrence wrote to Dalley enclosing a sum of £25 from his savings (plus a contribution from his father) "with my best wishes from a little boy at Manly".

Hopkins illustrated the 'Little Boy at Manly' as a young lad in early-Victorian costume in the style of English storybook schoolboys, wearing high-waisted pantaloons, a shirt with a frilled collar and a flat peaked cap.

[63][66] The official reception for the New South Wales Contingent was held on 23 June 1885, greeted by "thousands of people" at Circular Quay including the colonial governor Lord Augustus Loftus.

[62] Hopkins' parodic illustration of the return of the contingent, depicting William Bede Dalley on horseback reviewing the troops on the dock, was based on the composition of Thompson's painting.

In the background the transport vessel is laden with public contributions, including a grand piano and a cello, a barrel of rum and crates of whiskey, jam, lollies and scent.

The house had been advertised for sale in March 1889, described as being constructed of painted brick "on stone foundation", with a verandah front and side, eight bedrooms, a kitchen, bathroom, pantry and a weatherboard washhouse.

[76] The drawing, on lined scraper-board, shows a haggard working man arriving home to find the body of his starved wife on the floor, surrounded by her distraught children, as the eldest girl runs to her father.

A cover cartoon for the Bulletin's issue of 29 July 1899 shows a destitute George Reid, then premier of New South Wales, with spectral figures of past politicians in the background.

[87] His representations of politicians and the utilisation of potent symbolism complemented the Bulletin's editorial advocacy of economic and racial isolationism, republican nationalism and cultural chauvinism in the years before Federation.

By the late 1890s, when deadlines and pressure of work occasionally intervened to prevent the production of finished drawings, Hopkins introduced the concept of 'Hop's Understudy', the purported artist responsible for his more crudely-drawn cartoons.

[102] In April 1919 Hopkins' eldest son Daniel died, aged 41 years, in Sydney's Royal Prince Alfred Hospital of the Spanish influenza, leaving a widow and three children.

[12] Amongst his collection of musical instruments was a violoncello known as the 'Priest's Call', reputed to be of eighteenth century Italian make and an "old violin" bequeathed to him by the theatre manager George Rignold (who died in 1912).

[107] In February 1915 a feature cartoon by Hopkins in The Bulletin, 'Kaiser Bill Returns the Compliment', depicting President Woodrow Wilson being confronted by the ghost of George Washington, was explicitly anti-German (and by implication critical of America's neutral stance).