"D. I. J. O. N." — Fred Barnard's fifty-second illustration for "Dombey and Son" (1877)

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"D. I. J. O. N."

Fred Barnard

1877

13.9 cm high x 10.6 cm wide, three-quarter-page, framed.

composite wood-block engraving (dark plate)

Illustration for Chapter 52, "Secret Intelligence," 377, in Dickens's Dombey and Son, in the Household Edition, XV.

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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham

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Passage Illustrated: Carker's Travel Instructions to Edith Decoded

Rob, having nothing more to say, began to chalk, slowly and laboriously, on the table.

"D," the old woman read aloud, when he had formed the letter.

"Will you hold your tongue, Misses Brown?" he exclaimed, covering it with his hand, and turning impatiently upon her. "I won’t have it read out. Be quiet, will you!"

"Then write large, Rob," she returned, repeating her secret signal; "for my eyes are not good, even at print."

Muttering to himself, and returning to his work with an ill will, Rob went on with the word. As he bent his head down, the person for whose information he so unconsciously laboured, moved from the door behind him to within a short stride of his shoulder, and looked eagerly towards the creeping track of his hand upon the table. At the same time, Alice, from her opposite chair, watched it narrowly as it shaped the letters, and repeated each one on her lips as he made it, without articulating it aloud. At the end of every letter her eyes and Mr. Dombey’s met, as if each of them sought to be confirmed by the other; and thus they both spelt D. I. J. O. N. [Chapter 52, "Secret Intelligence," 376]

Other Studies of The Grinder communicating his secret from the Original and Library Editions

Left: Phiz's serial illustration of the same scene: Secret Intelligence (Ch. 52, February 1848). Right: Harry Furniss's dramatisation of the spy's furnishing Dombey's agents with the clue to Carker's destination: Mrs. Brown and D. I. J. O. N. (1910).

Related Material including Other Illustrated Editions of Dombey and Son

Dombey and Son (homepage)
Phiz's 39 illustrations for Dombey and Son, Wholesale Retail & for Exportation (Oct. 1846 — April 1848)
Sol Eytinge, Junior's 16 illustrations (1867)
The Illustrators of the Household Edition of the Works of Charles Dickens (22 vols., 1871-79)
Kyd's five Player's Cigarette Cards for Dombey and Son (1910)
Harry Furniss's illustrations for the Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910)

Bibliography

Dickens, Charles. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Phiz. (Hablot K. Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, 1848.

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

_______. Dombey and Son.16 Illustrations by Sol Eytinge, Jr., and A. V. S. Anthony (engraver). The Diamond Edition. 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 — Sixty-two Illustrations by Fred Barnard." Scenes and Characters from the Works of Charles Dickens, Being Eight Hundred and Sixty-six Drawings by Fred Barnard, Gordon Thomson, Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz), J. McL. Ralston, J. Mahoney, H. French, Charles Green, E. G. Dalziel, A. B. Frost, F. A. Fraser, and Sir Luke Fildes. London: Chapman and Hall, 1907.

Created 10 January 2021