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Milly and the Children
Frank Stone
1848
8.8 by 7.4 cm (3 ⅜ by 2 ⅞ inches), vignetted.
Three-quarter-page illustration for Dickens's The Haunted Man and The Ghost's Bargain, "The Gift Reversed," 159.
[Click on this and the following images to enlarge them.]
Scanned images and text by Philip V. Allingham.
"Hurrah! Here’s Mrs. William!" cried Johnny.
So she was, and all the children with her; and so she came in, they kissed her, and kissed one another, and kissed the baby, and kissed their father and mother, and then ran back and flocked and danced about her, trooping on with her in triumph. [Chapter III, "The Gift Reversed," 158-59]
In his third and final plate, which appears on page 159, Frank Stone again depicts Milly Swidger with pictorial consistency (posture, form, costume, and scale) as Dickens had desired him to do, cap and all. This plate is considerably more realistic and less cartoon-like than Leech's final offering, but Stone's high serious is appropriate to his angelic, spiritually renewing subject. The moment captured textually appears right above the plate, synthesizing the two narratives. The tearful reconciliation between the Tetterbys which we have just read about is reinforced by the joy of the children here. Both text and plate proclaim that Redlaw's gift has been revoked. Stone's depiction of Milly recalls pictures of Christ with the children and Catholic Counter-Reformation artists' conceptions of Charity: Milly in the text is "like the spirit of all goodness, affection, gentle consideration, love, and domesticity" (160), those qualities that the Christmas Books consistently celebrate. Owing to the time pressures associated with the publication, we shall now go thirty pages before the next illustration.
The essential tensions in the printed text are between the comic business of the Tetterbys and the melodrama surrounding Redlaw and the student; here, Milly clearly bridges the two plots and harmonizes these disparate elements in the same way that the country dance does at the close of The Chimes (1844). A similar sort of tension exists in the pictorial narrative, between John Leech's cartoon whimsy and Stone's Pre-Raphaelite serene sobriety, reinforced by the natural forces depicted in Stanfield's marinescape and the architectural elements of his final plate. By confining the artists to those subjects which he perceived to be their forté, Dickens was attempting to maintain pictorial-narrative continuity, although lapses do occasionally crop up, as in Leech's version of Johnny and the baby versus Stone's in Milly and the Children.
Charles Green's conception of functional Milly is far more prosaic and less fanciful, particularly in terms of Milly's extravagant sleeves in Stone's original illustrations, which the Household Edition appears to have ignored. Green has composed the scene in order to emphasize the suffering of the student rather than, as in Stone's, the angelic nature of the beautiful nurse.
Stone's elegant description of Milly's tenderly ministering to the sick student, whose true illness is melancholia: Milly and the Student. Centre, Harry Furniss similarly stylish description of Milly's visit to Mr. Denham's rooms, Milly (1910). and, right, Fred Barnard's handling of the children has none of Stone's angelic touches, "It roved from door-step to door-step, in the arms of little Johnny Tetterby, and lagged heavily at the rear of troops of juveniles who followed the Tumblers," etc. (1878).
Green's almost photographic realism of the tender moment strips it of its religious connotations: Mrs. William and the Sick Student (1895, 1912).
Allingham, Philip V. "The Illustrations in Dickens's The Haunted Man and The Ghost's Bargain: Public and Private Spheres and Spaces."Dickens Studies Annual 36 (2005), 75-123.
Dickens, Charles. The Haunted Man; or, The Ghost's Bargain. Illustrated by John Leech, Frank Stone, John Tenniel, and Clarkson Stanfield. Engraved by Martin & Corbould, T. Williams, Smith & Chellnam, and Dalziel. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1848.
_____. The Haunted Man. Illustrated by John Leech, Frank Stone, John Tenniel, and Clarkson Stanfield. (1848). Rpt. in Charles Dickens's Christmas Books, ed. Michael Slater. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971, rpt. 1978. II, 235-362, 365-366.
Glancy, Ruth. "Dickens at Work on The Haunted Man." Dickens Studies Annual 15 (1986): 65-85.
Guida, Fred. "A Christmas Carol" and Its Adaptations: Dickens's Story on Screen and Television. London & Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2000.
Created 19 October 2004
Last modified 28 March 2020