"Ah! I don't mind 'your' pinching," grinned Jonas, "A bit." (1872). — Twenty-sixth illustration by Fred Barnard for Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit (Chapter XX), page 169. [Jonas, courting both the Pecksniff girls at once, plays off Mercy against Charity, utilising sibling rivalry advance his marital prospects.] 9.3 cm x 13.7 cm. Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham. [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.]
Commentary
After the funeral of his parsimonious father, Anthony, the villainous Jonas Chuzzlewit is a wealthy bachelor. Part of the attraction of the Pecksniff sisters is that, on his way down to Wiltshire, Jonas has extracted a promise from their father of a dowry of four thousand pounds. Choosing the more difficult daughter, the headstrong Merry (Mercy) after this courting scene in which Barnard makes Jonas look like a taller version of the hideous drawf Dan'l Quilp in The Old Curiosity Shop, Jonas demands an extra thousand from Pecksniff in Chapter 20, "Is a Chapter of Love." In the Barnard illustration, neither Pecksniff sister seems inclined to accept Jonas's advances.
References
Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. New York and Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1990.
Dickens, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne. London: Chapman and Hall, 1844.
_____. Martin Chuzzlewit. Works of Charles Dickens. Household Edition. 55 vols. Il. F. O. C. Darley and John Gilbert. New York: Sheldon and Co., 1863. Vol. 2 of 4.
_____. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Junior. The Diamond Edition. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867.
_____. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, with 59 illustrations by Fred Barnard. Household Edition, volume 2. London: Chapman and Hall, 1871-1880. The copy of the Household Edition from which this picture was scanned was the gift of George Gorniak, proprietor of The Dickens Magazine, whose subject for the fifth series, beginning in January 2008, was this novel.
_____. Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. 7.
Kyd [Clayton J. Clarke]. Characters from Dickens. Nottingham: John Player & Sons, 1910.
Steig, Michael. "Martin Chuzzlewit's Progress by Dickens and Phiz. Dickens Studies Annual 2 (1972): 119-149.
Last modified 24 July 2016