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Hand-tinted Wrapper for January 1846
George Cruikshank, 1792-1878
27 September 1866
Wood-engraving composite block; watercolour
For the first of ten monthly instalments of The Adventures of Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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Dickens and Cruikshank had parted company with perhaps a little ill-feeling as a result of Dickens's requiring the artist to redraft entirely the final serial illustration, The Fireside, or Cancelled Plate. Cruikshank likely regarded the editor's demand as an imposition because he had completed the final sequences of plates earlier, and these had already appeared in the third volume of the Richard Bentley triple-decker, issued on 9 November 1838.
Dickens later compensated Cruikshank for the inconvenience of having to revise Oliver and His Family by recommending him to his new publishers, Bradbury and Evans, as the designer of the 1846 serial wrapper for the ten instalments that would be issued jointly with Chapman and Hall. Cruikshank hand-tinted a copy of the 1846 wood-engraving for book-collector F. W. Cosens (27 September 1866).
Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. New York and Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1990.
Cohen, Jane Rabb. "George Cruikshank." Charles Dickens and His Original Illustrators. Columbus: Ohio State U. P., 1980. Pp. 15-38.
Darley, Felix Octavius Carr. Character Sketches from Dickens. Philadelphia: Porter and Coates, 1888.
Davies, Philip. "Warren of Sunless Courts." Lost London, 1870-1945. Croxley Green, Hertfordshire: Transatlantic, 2009. Pp. 258-60.
Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998.
Dickens, Charles. The Adventures of Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress. Illustrated by George Cruikshank. London: Bradbury and Evans; Chapman and Hall, 1846.
_______. The Adventures of Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress. Illustrated by George Cruikshank. London & New York: Macmillan, 1892 [contains reproductions of the 1846 wrapper, of the first page of the 1838 Bentley volume, and of the first page of the Prest serial, Oliver Twiss].
_______. Oliver Twist. Works of Charles Dickens. Household Edition. 55 vols. Illustrated by F. O. C. Darley and John Gilbert. New York: Sheldon and Co., 1865.
_______. Oliver Twist. Works of Charles Dickens. Diamond Edition. 14 vols. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867.
_______. Oliver Twist. . Household Edition. Illustrated by James Mahoney. London: Chapman and Hall, 1871.
_______. Oliver Twist. The Annotated Dickens. Ed. Edward Guiliano and Philip Collins. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1986. I, 534-823.
_______. The Adventures of Oliver Twist. Works of Charles Dickens. Charles Dickens Library Edition. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. London: Educational Book Company, 1910. Vol. 3.
Forster, John. "Oliver Twist 1838." The Life of Charles Dickens. Ed. B. W. Matz. The Memorial Edition. 2 vols. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1911. Vol. 1, book 2, chapter 3. Pp. 91-99.
Grego, Joseph (intro). "Special wrapper, drawn and coloured by George Cruikshank, the design used upon the covers for Oliver Twist when first published in parts." Cruikshank's Water Colours with introduction by joseph Grego.. London: A. & C. Black, 1903. [OT = pp. 1-106]. Frontispiece.
Kitton, Frederic G. "George Cruikshank." Dickens and His Illustrators: Cruikshank, Seymour, Buss, "Phiz," Cattermole, Leech, Doyle, Stanfield, Maclise, Tenniel, Frank Stone, Topham, Marcus Stone, and Luke Fildes. 1899. Rpt. Honolulu: U. Press of the Pacific, 2004. Pp. 1-28.
Created 16 October 2014 Last modified 7 January 2022