"The Monthly Wrapper" — George Cattermole's wood-engraving for Dickens's "Master Humphrey's Clock" in 87 parts (2-23 May 1840)

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Monthly Wrapper

George Cattermole

Part Two: 2-23 May 1840

Dickens's Master Humphrey's Clock, 88 numbers.

[Click on image to enlarge it.]

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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Ornamental details from the original edition's wrapper (2-23 May 1840)

Above: Cattermole's elegant design implies that the action of Dickens's story will governed by the agents time, for the motif occurs not only in the grandfather clock that gives the periodical its name, but also in the companion hour-glasses in The Monthly Wrapper for Part 2 of Master Humphrey's Clock.

Above: The Baroque style of the bannerhead seems to suggest that this will be work of a fanciful nature, and a complex, meandering plot. The presence of the fairies throughout, however, is somewhat misleading unless they are merely indicative of the picaresque novel's imaginative character.

Related Material Including Other Illustrated Editions of The Old Curiosity Shop

The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens (homepage)
The Old Curiosity Shop Illustrated: A Team Effort by "The Clock Works."
The Original Serial Illustrations for The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-41)
Felix O. C. Darley (4 photogravure plates, 1861)
Sol Eytinge, Jr. (12 wood engravings, 1867)
Thomas Worth (53 wood-engravings, 1872)
Charles Green (39 wood-engravings, 1876)
The Old Curiosity Shop by W. H. C. Groome in the Collins' Clear-Type Press Edition (nine lithographs, 1900)
The Old Curiosity Shop (1910) by Harry Furniss in the British Charles Dickens Library Edition (31 lithographs plus engraved title)
J. Clayton Clarke ("Kyd") (13 lithographs from watercolours)
Harold Copping (2 chromolithographs selected)

Bibliography

Dickens, Charles. The Old Curiosity Shop in Master Humphrey's Clock. Illustrated by Phiz, George Cattermole, Samuel Williams, and Daniel Maclise. 3 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1840.

Created 13 November 2018

Last modified 19 November 2020