"Well, sir!" said the Captain, putting his hat a little more on one side, for it was rather tight in the crown: "You're quite a public man I calc'late." (1872). — Fred Barnard's twenty-eighth regular wood-engraving for Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit, (Chapter XXI), page 185. [In Ch. XXXII, in their room at the National Hotel in Watertoast, Martin Chuzzlewit and Mark Tapley are visited at The National Hotel by their landlord, the affable Captain Kedgick, who is vastly amused that Martin has been asked by the Watertoast Society's Secretary, the oxymoronic La Fayette Kettle, to deliver a lecture on the Tower of London, and that the leading citizens insist upon attending a "le—vee" for him. This whole episode reflects young writer Charles Dickens's own reception in America as a literary lion.] 9.4 cm x 13.8 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.]
Relevant Images of the Young Englishmen among the Americans, 1843-1910
Left: Hablot Knight Browne's initial view of Eden — on the wall of the land agent's office, The Thriving City of Eden as it Appeared on Paper (Chapter 21, September 1843). Right: Phiz's support of Dickens's satire of the actual appearance of the mosquito-infested wilderness, The Thriving City of Eden as it Appeared in Fact (September 1843). [Click on images to enlarge them.]
Left: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s study of the effect of the place on Martin, Martin Chuzzlewit and Mark Tapley outside their plague-infested cabin in the mournful wilderness of the Mississippi valley (1867). Right: Harry Furniss's contrasting visions of the ebullient Mark Tapley and the dilapidated cabins that constitute the ironically-named Eden, "Eden!" (1910).[Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Above: Fred Barnard's realisation of the scene in which Martin is besieged by fellow-travellers on the train west to clarify where Queen Victoria resides, "I was merely remarking, gentlemen — though it's a point of very little import — that the Queen of England does not happen to live in the Tower of London."(1872). [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
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