"Permit me to introduce my friends — Mr. Tupman — Mr. Winkle — Mr. Snodgrass" — illustration by Phiz for Dickens's "Pickwick Papers" (1874)

Permit me to introduce my friends — Mr. Tupman — Mr. Winkle — Mr. Snodgrass &c. by Phiz (Hablot K. Browne). Fourteenth composite woodblock engraving. Chapter XV, “In which is given a faithful Portraiture of two distinguished Persons; and an accurate description of a Public Breakfast in their House and Grounds; which Public Breakfast leads to the Recognition of an old Acquaintance, and the commencement of another Chapter,” British Household Edition (1874) of Dickens's The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Second full-page engraving. 13.6 cm high by 18 cm wide (5 ¼ inches by 7 inches), framed, facing p. 101. [Click on image to enlarge it.]

Passage Illustrated: Introductions at the Garden-Party

"Mr. Pickwick, ma'am," said a servant, as that gentleman approached the presiding goddess, with his hat in his hand, and the brigand and troubadour on either arm.

"What! Where!" exclaimed Mrs. Leo Hunter, starting up, in an affected rapture of surprise.

"Here," said Mr. Pickwick.

"Is it possible that I have really the gratification of beholding Mr. Pickwick himself!" ejaculated Mrs. Leo Hunter.

"No other, ma'am," replied Mr. Pickwick, bowing very low. "Permit me to introduce my friends — Mr. Tupman — Mr. Winkle — Mr. Snodgrass — to the authoress of "The Expiring Frog."

Very few people but those who have tried it, know what a difficult process it is to bow in green velvet smalls, and a tight jacket, and high-crowned hat; or in blue satin trunks and white silks, or knee-cords and top-boots that were never made for the wearer, and have been fixed upon him without the remotest reference to the comparative dimensions of himself and the suit. Never were such distortions as Mr. Tupman's frame underwent in his efforts to appear easy and graceful — never was such ingenious posturing, as his fancy-dressed friends exhibited. [Chapter XV, “In which is given a faithful Portraiture of two distinguished Persons; and an accurate description of a Public Breakfast in their House and Grounds; which Public Breakfast leads to the Recognition of an old Acquaintance, and the commencement of another Chapter,” 101]

Commentary: Satirizing a Literary Lion in Her Own Garden

As always, in both Phiz illustrations, Pickwick is readily identifiable, and, by virtue of their close proximity to him, so are Tupman ("fat," as Pickwick says, and looking decidedly uncomfortable in his ridiculous bandit getup), the tall Pott (as a blend of a bearded Cossack and a judge, in the background in both earlier plates, but brought forward in that for 1874), and the slender Winkle, as usual, wearing gaiters, and a (red) jacket appropriate to a huntsman — or a postman. The background in Phiz's early plates suggests the kind of outdoor and natural setting that the French court of the eighteenth century would have required for such an affair, but Phiz has filled the 1873 composite woodblock engraving's background with two tents and nine figures in "fancy dress." In both, the elderly Mrs. Leo Hunter looks not so much a literary lion as "mutton got up as lamb," in contrast to the younger women whose beauty the skimpy costumes complement.

Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s Diamond Edition (Boston) closeup of the curious Count and his hostess, Mrs. Leo Hunter's Party (1867).

More significantly, in the 1874 revision of this illustration, Phiz has pushed Mrs. Hunter to the left margin, giving greater prominence to Pickwick and his associates. Having a larger field to fill (13 by 17.4 cm for 1873; 12 by 10.5 for 1836-38), in the third iteration Phiz has been able to make his figures much larger, but the change in medium (and probably his partial paralysis and blindness) has meant a loss in the delicacy of line and subtlety of shading in the later illustration. Subtle changes are obvious upon closer inspection: for example, the young woman on Snodgrass's arm, Mrs. Pott, dressed as Apollo with quiver and lyre (right), does not hold her musical instrument up in the 1873 plate and has a more natural pose. The later plate presents figures modelled with a greater sense of three-dimensional space, emphasising, for example, the trunks and boughs of the trees in the backdrop, whereas the original illustration created a Watteau-esque setting by focusing the trees' foliage and by showing the trees in their entirety. In essence, then, Phiz's view in 1836 is panoramic, but that of the 1874 woodcut is a close-up in which the principals crowd out the background detail: note, for example, the figure in the helmet between Pickwick and his hostess — in bringing the bearded editor forward in the Household Edition woodcut, Phiz has forced that other-worldly figure in the helmet (Snodgrass) into the background.

The essential point of both Dickens's text and Phiz's 1836 illustration is the satirising of society lady poets and their bad poetry, Dickens's model, according to Philip Collins and Edward Guiliano in The Annotated Dickens, being the Honourable Miss Mary Monckton (1746-1840), afterwards, Lady Cork, "a renowned socialite and conversationalist, whose passion was to throw parties for the most eminent people of her day" (Vol. I, p. 150). Dickens has appropriately dubbed her "Lion-Hunter," for she glories in catching literary lions and celebrities such as Count Smorltork and Samuel Pickwick. According to Kathleen Tillotson in the Literary Times Supplement for 22 November 1957,

Dickens based his depiction of the Count on Prince Puckler-Muskau and Professor Friedrich von Raumer, both of whom had recently written books about England after short tours of the country. [Cited in The Annotated Dickens, Vol. I, p. 152]

Likely through conversations with the author, Phiz would have been aware of the originals who sat for the portraits of Mrs. Leo Hunter and the Count, for as Jane Rabb Cohen notes, Dickens gave his illustrator very explicit suggestions for the September 1836 garden-party picture in a 19 October 1836 letter, in which Dickens comments upon the juxtapositions of the characters and the ladies. In particular, he stipulated that "Minerva" (that is, Mrs. Hunter) should look "a little younger (like Mrs. Pott — who is perfect)" (cited in Cohen, p. 64), as if Browne were trying to make Mrs. Hunter as old as Miss Monckton (i. e., 90!).

Left: Harry Furniss's highly animated version of the same scene: Mrs. Leo hunter's Garden Party in the Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910). Right: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s Diamond Edition (Boston) closeup of the curious Count and his hostess, Mrs. Leo Hunter's Party. [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

Other artists who illustrated this work, 1836-1910

Related Material

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham. Formatting by George P. Landow. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image 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. 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.

Created 5 April 2012

Last modified 14 March 2024