"The Red-Nosed Man Discourseth" — Thirty-fourth illustration for "Pickwick Papers," Chapter XLV, by Phiz or Hablot K. Browne (August 1837)

The Red-Nosed Man Discourseth, or, Mr. Stiggins discoursing — thirty-fourth steel engraving for Charles Dickens's The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, instalment 16; two versions by Phiz (Hablot K. Browne) for the August 1837 number and the 1838 bound volume; Chapter XLV, “Descriptive of an affecting Interview between Mr. Samuel Weller and a Family Party. Mr. Pickwick makes a Tour of the diminutive World he inhabits, and resolves to mix with it in future as little as possible,” facing page 484. The original illustration is 10.8 cm high by 10.7 cm wide (4 ⅛ by 4 inches), vignetted. The initial or A engraving of Plate 34, as Johnannsen (1956) notes, has no cross-piece on Sam's chair, but has a hole in the floor under the umbrella. The second version of the B plate, for the 1838 volume edition, bears the legend. Both versions, Johnannsen remarks, have the same distracting glass bells above the gas jets: "Like a stage setting, all the characters face the audience" (6). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

Passage illustrated: Dickens's Continuing Satire of the Alcoholic Non-Conformist Preacher

During the delivery of the oration, Mrs. Weller sobbed and wept at the end of the paragraphs; while Sam, sitting cross-legged on a chair and resting his arms on the top rail, regarded the speaker with great suavity and blandness of demeanour; occasionally bestowing a look of recognition on the old gentleman, who was delighted at the beginning, and went to sleep about half-way. [Chapter XLV, “Descriptive of an affecting Interview between Mr. Samuel Weller and a Family Party. Mr. Pickwick makes a Tour of the diminutive World he inhabits, and resolves to mix with it in future as little as possible,” 484]

Commentary

Having satirized education in the plot gambit involving the seminary for young ladies and the law in "The Trial," Phiz and Dickens now assail the non-established church in the person of a dissenting preacher named Stiggins, whom Tony Weller derisively has denominated as "the red-nosed man" — a reference to the outward and visible sign of his hypocrisy. The Reverend Stiggins as the chief of the Dorking branch of the Brick Lane Branch of the United Grand Junction Ebenezer Temperance Association is Mrs. Weller's spiritual counsellor — who sponges off her at her Marquis of Granby public house. Even as the temperance preacher criticizes taps (public houses) as "vanities," he asks Sam to order him a hot rum and water. Apparently, Sam's step-mother ("mother-in-law") has brought the preacher to the Fleet Prison to exhort Sam to repent his dissolute ways that have led to his incarceration for debt — clearly she is unaware that Sam has contrived his status as debtor merely to watch over Mr. Pickwick. Sam, too, regards Stiggins as a "humbug," as he describes the preacher as "Saint Simon Without, and Saint Walker Within" (the reference being to the notorious spy Hookey Walker, the vehicle for expressions of incredulity such as that by the street boy whom Scrooge asks to bring the poulterer and prize turkey around to his residence on Christmas morning at the close of A Christmas Carol (1843).

Ever since his initial appearance in the story in chapter ten as the down-to-earth, practical-minded foil to the naive, good-hearted Pickwick in chapter ten (his arrival in the narrative commemorated in Phiz's First Appearance of Mr. Samuel Weller), the plucky, wise-cracking, street-smart Cockney had been a favourite with readers — and a continuing character in the picaresque novel, Sancho Panza to Pickwick's Don Quixote, so to speak. Now he assumes considerable prominence in an illustration. The plate, in fact, makes no reference to Sam's "master" whatsoever, for the characters are entirely below the mercantile Pickwick's social station: Mrs. Weller (left), sobbing; Stiggins (centre) in full rhetorical flight; Sam's father, Tony, nodding off; and Sam, not "cross-legged" as indicated in the text, but rather straddling the chair in the Snuggery as if it were a horse (as would be appropriate to a coachman). Phiz reprised precisely this scene in his 1874 Household Edition illustrations as Mr. Stiggins, getting on his legs as well as he could, proceeded to deliver an edifying discourse for the benefit of the company, but has eliminated the lighting fixtures entirely, moving in for a closeup of the four figures at the table. The later version seems somewhat more sympathetic to Mrs. Weller. Again, Phiz is treating the elements in the comic scene more realistically, and treats the figures, particularly Stiggins, with greater modelling and realism, as is consistent with the new style of Sixties illustration.

Relevant Household and Charles Dickens Library Edition (1874 & 1910) illustrations

Left: The same scene in the 1874 Household Edition: Mr. Stiggins, getting on his legs as well as he could, proceeded to deliver an edifying discourse for the benefit of the company. Right: Harry Furniss seems to have based his lithograph on the more exuberant style of the 1837 original in Mr. Stiggins on his Legs (1910).

Other artists who illustrated this work, 1836-1910

Scanned images and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the images, and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Bibliography

Cohen, Jane Rabb. Charles Dickens and His Original Illustrators. Columbus: Ohio State U. P., 1980.

Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998.

Dickens, Charles. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Robert Seymour, Robert Buss, and Phiz. London: Chapman and Hall, November 1837. With 32 additional illustrations by Thomas Onwhyn (London: E. Grattan, April-November 1837).

Dickens, Charles. The Posthumous Adventures of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. 14 vols. The Diamond Edition. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867. Vol. 1.

Dickens, Charles. Pickwick Papers. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1874. Vol. 6.

Dickens, Charles. Pickwick Papers Illustrated by Thomas Nast. The Household Edition. New York: Harper and Bros., 1873.

Guiliano, Edward, and Philip Collins, eds. The Annotated Dickens.2 vols. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1986. Vol. I.

Hammerton, J. A. The Dickens Picture-Book. London: Educational Book Co., 1910.

Johnannsen, Albert. "The Posthumous Papers of The Pickwick Club." Phiz Illustrations from the Novels of Charles Dickens. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; Toronto: The University of Toronto Press, 1956. 1-74.

Kitton, Frederic G. Dickens and His Illustrators. 1899. Rpt. Honolulu: U. Press of the Pacific, 2004.

Steig, Michael. Chapter 2. "The Beginnings of 'Phiz': Pickwick, Nickleby, and the Emergence from Caricature." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U. P., 1978. 24-50.

Created 25 December 2011

Last updated 1 April 2024