Headnote vignette for Book I, Chapter 4, "The Preparation," — illustration for "A Tale of Two Cities" by John McLenan in "Harper's Weekly," Vol. III, No. 124 (14 May 1859)

Headnote vignette: Book the First, Chapter IV, "The Preparation."

John McLenan

7 cm high by 4.3 cm wide (3 inches by 1 ¾ inches)

Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, Book I, Ch. IV, "The Preparation."

Harper's Weekly, Vol. III, No. 124 (14 May 1859): 305.

This second instalment had already appeared in the U.K. in All the Year Round on 7 May 1859.

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

[You may use the image 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.]

The illustration appears here courtesy of the E. J. Pratt Fine Arts Library, University of Toronto, and the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, UBC.

Passage Illustrated: Mr. Jervis Lorry arrives by Coach at The Royal George Inn, Dover

The coffee-room had no other occupant, that forenoon, than the gentleman in brown. His breakfast-table was drawn before the fire, and as he sat, with its light shining on him, waiting for the meal, he sat so still, that he might have been sitting for his portrait.

Very orderly and methodical he looked, with a hand on each knee, and a loud watch ticking a sonorous sermon under his flapped waist-coat, as though it pitted its gravity and longevity against the levity and evanescence of the brisk fire. He had a good leg, and was a little vain of it, for his brown stockings fitted sleek and close, and were of a fine texture; his shoes and buckles, too, though plain, were trim. He wore an odd little sleek crisp flaxen wig, setting very close to his head: which wig, it is to be presumed, was made of hair, but which looked far more as though it were spun from filaments of silk or glass. His linen, though not of a fineness in accordance with his stockings, was as white as the tops of the waves that broke upon the neighbouring beach, or the specks of sail that glinted in the sunlight far at sea. A face habitually suppressed and quieted, was still lighted up under the quaint wig by a pair of moist bright eyes that it must have cost their owner, in years gone by, some pains to drill to the composed and reserved expression of Tellson’s Bank. He had a healthy colour in his cheeks, and his face, though lined, bore few traces of anxiety. But, perhaps the confidential bachelor clerks in Tellson’s Bank were principally occupied with the cares of other people; and perhaps second-hand cares, like second-hand clothes, come easily off and on. [Book the First — "Recalled to Life," Chapter IV, "The Preparation," 305]

Other Illustrated Editions (1859-1910)

Related Material

Bibliography

Allingham, Philip V. "Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities (1859) Illustrated: A Critical Reassessment of Hablot Knight Browne's Accompanying Plates." Dickens Studies. 33 (2003): 109-158.

Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities. Illustrated by John McLenan. Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization, 7 May through 3 December 1859.

Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities: A story of the French Revolution. Project Gutenberg e-text by Judith Boss, Omaha, Nebraska. Release Date: 25 September 2004 [EBook #98].

Created 5 August 2007

Last modified 17 November 2025