The wordless novel is a narrative genre that uses sequences of captionless pictures to tell a story. As artists have often made such books using woodcut and other relief printing techniques, the terms woodcut novel or novel in woodcuts are also used. The genre flourished primarily in the 1920s and 1930s and was most popular in Germany.
Wordless novels flourished in Germany in the 1920s and typically were made using woodcut or similar techniques in an Expressionist style. (Frans Masereel, 25 Images of a Man's Passion, 1918)
Expressionist film and graphics inspired early wordless novels. (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, 1920)
Wordless novelists favoured relief printing such as in this wood engraving from Ward's Prelude to a Million Years (1933).
In He Done Her Wrong (1930), Milt Gross parodied Lynd Ward's Gods' Man (1929).
Frans Masereel was a Belgian painter and graphic artist who worked mainly in France. He is known especially for his woodcuts which focused on political and social issues, such as war and capitalism. He completed over 40 wordless novels in his career, and among these, his greatest is generally said to be Passionate Journey.
Frans Masereel in his studio, by Jules De Bruycker
Cornucopia, a mosaic by Frans Masereel
From Mon Livre d'Heures (A Passionate Journey, 1919)