"Only Myself" — fifteenth illustration by W. L. Sheppard for Dickens's "Dombey and Son" (American Household Edition, 1873)

"Only Myself" by W. L. Sheppard. Fifteenth illustration for Dickens's Dombey and Son in the American Household Edition (1873), Chapter XIII, "Shipping Intelligence and Office Business," 79. 10.6 x 13.5 cm (4 ⅛ by 5 ¼ inches) framed. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Mr. Caeker the Manager engaged in conversation with his brother as Walter listens

Mr. Carker was a gentleman thirty-eight or forty years old, of a florid complexion, and with two unbroken rows of glistening teeth, whose regularity and whiteness were quite distressing. It was impossible to escape the observation of them, for he showed them whenever he spoke; and bore so wide a smile upon his countenance (a smile, however, very rarely, indeed, extending beyond his mouth), that there was something in it like the snarl of a cat. He affected a stiff white cravat, after the example of his principal, and was always closely buttoned up and tightly dressed. [Chapter XIII, "Shipping Intelligence and Office Business," 76]

Passage Illustrated: Carker punishes Walter for standing up for his brother

“You strike me sharply; and your hand is steady, and your thrust is very deep,” returned the other, speaking (or so Walter thought) as if some cruel weapon actually stabbed him as he spoke. “I imagined all this when he was a boy. I believed it. It was a truth to me. I saw him lightly walking on the edge of an unseen gulf where so many others walk with equal gaiety, and from which —”

“The old excuse,” interrupted his brother, as he stirred the fire. “So many. Go on. Say, so many fall.”

“From which ONE traveller fell,” returned the other, “who set forward, on his way, a boy like him, and missed his footing more and more, and slipped a little and a little lower; and went on stumbling still, until he fell headlong and found himself below a shattered man. Think what I suffered, when I watched that boy.”

“You have only yourself to thank for it,” returned the brother.

“Only myself,” he assented with a sigh. “I don’t seek to divide the blame or shame.”

“You have divided the shame,” James Carker muttered through his teeth. And, through so many and such close teeth, he could mutter well. [Chapter XIII."Shipping Intelligence and Office Business," 79]

Commentary: The Carker Brothers' one-sided antipathy

For daring to stand up for his friend, John, manager James Carker's brother, Walter Gay is summarily transferred to the Dombey branch in Barbados, West Indies, effectively exiled. Dombey's devious manager, James Carker, has two siblings: an elder brother, John (depicted here), and a sister, Harriet. The elderly John also works at the London offices of Dombey and Son, but he occupies a much lower position in the firm as a result of his having been caught stealing from his employer years before. Ever-smiling James Carker has never forgiven his brother, and frequently goes out of his way to humiliate the shabbily dressed, faltering, and shame-faced clerk, as is evidenced in this illustration. Sheppard distinguishes the brothers by James Carker's sartorial elegance and his older brother's relative shabbiness.

Representations of Mr. James Carker (1847 through 1910)

Left: Phiz's May 1847 illustration for the thirty-fourth chapter, Mr. Carker Introduces Himself to Florence and the Skettles Family, in which Phiz introduces the fashionably dressed Manager. Centre: Fred Barnard's Household Edition illustration of the interview with Dombey in which Carker proposes transferring Walter: "You respect nobody, Carker, I think," said Mr. Dombey (1877). Right: Harry Furniss's initial illustration involving the devious manager: Mr. Carker and Captain Cuttle (1910).

Left: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s character studiy of the devious, ever-smiling manager, James Carker (1867). Centre: Fred Barnard's realisation of the same confrontation scene: "Go," said the good-humoured Manager, gathering up his skirts, and standing astride upon the hearth-rug. . . (1877). Right: W. H. C. Groome's version of the confrontation at the offices of Dombey & Co.: "Let us have no turning out" (1900).

Related Material, including Other Illustrated Editions of Dombey and Son (1846-1910)

Scanned image 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 it and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Bibliography

Dickens, Charles. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by W. L. Sheppard. The Household Edition. 18 vols. New York: Harper & Co., 1873.

__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by F. O. C. Darley and John Gilbert. The Works of Charles Dickens. The Household Edition. 55 vols. New York: Sheldon and Company, 1862. Vols. 1-4.

__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr., and engraved by A. V. S. Anthony. 14 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. III.

__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Fred Barnard [62 composite wood-block engravings]. The Works of Charles Dickens. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1877. XV.

__________. Dombey and Son. With illustrations by H. K. Browne. The illustrated library Edition. 2 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, c. 1880. II.

__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. 61 wood-engravings. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1877. XV.

__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by W. H. C. Groome. London and Glasgow, 1900, rpt. 1934. 2 vols. in one.

__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. IX.

__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz"). 8 coloured plates. London and Edinburgh: Caxton and Ballantyne, Hanson, 1910.

__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz"). The Clarendon Edition, ed. Alan Horsman. Oxford: Clarendon, 1974.

Dickens, Mary Angela, Percy Fitzgerald, Captain Edric Vredenburg, and Others. Illustrated by Harold Copping with eleven coloured lithographs. "Little Paul Dombey," the tenth chapter in Children's Stories from Dickens. London: Raphael Tuck, 1893. Pp. 101-109.

Created 30 January 2022