"Jolly!" (1872). Thirty-ninth llustration by Fred Barnard for Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit (Chapter XXXIII), page 265. [A suitably purgatorial experience for gullible immigrants: the faithful Mark — Dickens's model of the true "gentleman" — tends a feverish Martin in their run-down log-cabin on the shores of the Mississippi in the ironically-named Eden, amidst a malarial infested swamp on the Illinois shore.] 9.5 cm x 13.9 cm, or 4 ¼ high by 5 ½ inches, framed, engraved by the Dalziels. Running head: “Genuine Smartness." [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Passage Illustrated: Mark tends Martin through Malaria
They had some medicine in their chest; and this man of sad experience showed Mark how and when to administer it, and how he could best alleviate the sufferings of Martin. His attentions did not stop there; for he was backwards and forwards constantly, and rendered Mark good service in all his brisk attempts to make their situation more endurable. Hope or comfort for the future he could not bestow. The season was a sickly one; the settlement a grave. His child died that night; and Mark, keeping the secret from Martin, helped to bury it, beneath a tree, next day.
With all his various duties of attendance upon Martin (who became the more exacting in his claims, the worse he grew), Mark worked out of doors, early and late; and with the assistance of his friend and others, laboured to do something with their land. Not that he had the least strength of heart or hope, or steady purpose in so doing, beyond the habitual cheerfulness of his disposition, and his amazing power of self-sustainment; for within himself, he looked on their condition as beyond all hope, and, in his own words, "came out strong" in consequence.
"As to coming out as strong as I could wish, sir," he confided to Martin in a leisure moment; that is to say, one evening, while he was washing the linen of the establishment, after a hard day’s work, "that I give up. It’s a piece of good fortune as never is to happen to me, I see!"
"Would you wish for circumstances stronger than these?’ Martin retorted with a groan, from underneath his blanket.
"Why, only see how easy they might have been stronger, sir," said Mark, "if it wasn’t for the envy of that uncommon fortun of mine, which is always after me, and tripping me up. The night we landed here, I thought things did look pretty jolly. I won’t deny it. I thought they did look pretty jolly." [Chapter XXXIII, "Further Proceedings in Eden, and a Proceeding out of it. Martin Makes a Discovery of Some Importance," 262]
Commentary
In American Notes, a woman travelling on the steamboat with her new-born infant is happily re-united with her husband, who has never seen the child, born while his wife was in New York. In contrast, in Martin Chuzzlewit, the young woman and her children from steerage find her husband worn out by the hellish heat and disease of the Mississippi at Eden, a cautionary tale for would-be English emigrants. — Allingham, "America's Eden," 8.
The caption "Jolly!" is deliberately ambiguous since Mark never actually utters that single ironic term to describe their forlorn condition in Eden. No sooner have the pair of Englishmen arrived in savage Eden than Martin falls ill from swamp fever, and Mark must tend him, with the assistance of the immigrant family next door. By sheer Dickensian coincidence, they are the very family that Mark looked after in steerage on The Screw. Just as Martin begins to recover, Mark falls deathly ill, requiring the care of the neighbours and Martin. Although Barnard's illustration apparently shows Martin under the blanket and the faithful Mark at the bedside, the reverse could be true. The whole miserable near-deathly situation for both young Englishmen in the wilds of America is only "Jolly!" if one is being verbally ironic.
Relevant images of the Long-Suffering Mark and Emaciated Martin (1843 to 1910)
Left: Hablot Knight Browne's study in contrasting reactions to the trials of the Englishmen in the American swamp, The Thriving City of Eden as it Appeared in Fact (September 1843). Centre: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s Martin Chuzzlewit and Mark Tapley (1867), in which a cheerful Mark supports the wasted form of his companion. Right: Harry Furniss's depiction of the ebullient Mark Tapley as more than a match for the vicissitudes imposed by the wretched Mississippi River village on the Illinois shore, Eden! (1910). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Left: Phiz's depiction of Mark's recognizing the next-door neighbours: Mr. Tapley is Recognized by Some Fellow-Citizens of Eden (January 1844). Right: Harry Furniss's depiction of the squalor of the architects' cabin as Mark tends Martin through malarial fever, Mr. Chollop Visits Martin (1910). [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Related Materials
- The American Plates, Parts Seven and Nine: Appearance Versus Reality, Expectation versus Fulfillment
- Dickens's 1842 Reading Tour: Launching the Copyright Question in Tempestuous Seas
Scanned images and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use the images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned them and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
Allingham, Philip V. "Historical Background: America's Eden." The Dickens Magazine: Martin Chuzzlewit. 5.2 (August 2008): 8.
Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. New York and Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1990.
Davis, Paul. "Martin Chuzzlewit, The Life and Adventures of." Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts-on-file and Checkmark, 1998. Pp. 229-237.
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. Illustrated by F. O. C. Darley and John Gilbert. New York: Sheldon and Co., 1863. Vol. 1 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. 22 vols. Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1871-1880. Vol. 2. [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.
"The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit: Fifty-nine Illustrations by Fred Barnard." Scenes and Characters from the Works of Charles Dickens, Being Eight Hundred and Sixty-Six Drawings by Fred Barnard, Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz), J. Mahoney, Charles Green, A. B. Frost, Gordon Thomson, J. McL. Ralston, H. French, E. G. Dalziel, F. A. Fraser, and Sir Luke Fildes. Printed from the Original Woodblocks Engraved for "The Household Edition." London: Chapman and Hall, 1908. Pp. 185-216.
Steig, Michael. "From Caricature to Progress: Master Humphrey's Clock and Martin Chuzzlewit." Ch. 3, Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U.P., 1978. Pp. 51-85. [See e-text in Victorian Web.]
Steig, Michael. "Martin Chuzzlewit's Progress by Dickens and Phiz." Dickens Studies Annual 2 (1972): 119-149.
3 February 2008
Last modified 25 November 2024