James Neagle

James Neagle (1760?–1822) was a British engraver. Very largely a line engraver of book illustrations, he was prolific of designs by Thomas Stothard, Robert Smirke, Henry Fuseli, Gavin Hamilton, Henry Singleton, Richard Cook, and other popular artists.

Neagle went to the Royal Academy art schools in 1786. He had many commissions from the publishing firm of Cadell & Davies. In 1801, in a civil action brought by Jean Marie Delattre the engraver against John Singleton Copley, over a plate, Neagle was a witness for the plaintiff. Towards the end of his life (after 1816) he emigrated to America.

The death of William Rufus, engraving by James Neagle from Robert Bowyer's History of England

Neagle's work included plates for:

• John Boydell's and other editions of Shakespeare, including plates after Francis Wheatley;
• John Sharpe's and Charles Cooke's series of English Classics;
• Edward Forster's Arabian Nights, 1802;
• Gil Blas, 1809, translated by Benjamin Heath Malkin;
• Ancient Terra-Cottas in the British Museum, 1810, by Taylor Combe; and
• James Cavanah Murphy's Arabian Antiquities of Spain, 1816.

A major work was The Royal Procession in St. Paul's on St. George's Day, 1789, from a drawing by Edward Dayes.

Neagle had a son, John B. Neagle (died 1866), who practised as an engraver in Philadelphia.