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Portrait of Emma Haredale
Engraver: E. Finden
1849
Steel engraving
11.8 cm high by 8.8 cm wide (4 ⅝ inches high by 3 ½ inches wide), framed, facing p. 92.
Dickens's Barnaby Rudge, The Cheap Edition's title-page vignette (1849)
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham
It was a long letter — a very long letter, written close on all four sides of the sheet of paper, and crossed afterwards; but it was not a consolatory letter, for as Emma read it she stopped from time to time to put her handkerchief to her eyes. To be sure Dolly marvelled greatly to see her in so much distress, for to her thinking a love affair ought to be one of the best jokes, and the slyest, merriest kind of thing in life. But she set it down in her own mind that all this came from Miss Haredale’s being so constant, and that if she would only take on with some other young gentleman — just in the most innocent way possible, to keep her first lover up to the mark — she would find herself inexpressibly comforted. [Chapter XX, 92]
Left: Phiz's introductory illustration for Emma Haredale involves her fraught relationships with Edward Chester and her controlling guardian and uncle: Mr. Hardeale Interrupts the Lovers (3 April 1841); Phiz's contrasting the heroines in Reading the Lover-Letter (24 April 1841) Centre: Fred Barnard's dual study of serious Enmma and vain Dolly: Emma Haredale and Dolly Varden in Chapter 20 (1874). Right: Harry Furniss's representation of the letter-delivery: Dolly is the Bearer of a Love Letter in Chapter 20 (1910).
Each portrait artist (whether John Absolon or Fanny Corbaux) has revised the original Phiz-Cruikshank conception of the novel's illustrations considerably. Here, for example, instead of contrasting the vain Dolly and the serious Emma as Phiz and other later illustrators have done, Corbaux focuses on the youthful, feminine beauty of the two heroines in two full-page character studies. Aside from the letter open on Emma's lap, the artist offers no contextual clues as to the moment realised. The reader, then, falls back on the juxtaposition of plate and text to interpret the wistful look on the young woman's face. This pair of companion portraits, like the frontispiece, reference Dolly's delivery of Edward Chester's love-letter. No further illustrations allude to the Vardens, their maid, or the contrasting apprentices, Joe Willet and Sim Tappertit — nor, indeed, do they include any subjects that suggest the novel's subtitle, A Tale of the Riots of Eighty. In the portrait of Emma we have the second of the three 1849 engravings that focus on Dolly and Emma at The Warren. Although the ornate armchair in which the pensive heroine sits suggests the period of the novel and the physical setting of the scene, the subject's clothing and hairstyle represent an updating of the young aristocrat of 1780.
Darley, Octavius Carr. Character Sketches from Dickens. Philadelphia: Porter and Coates, 1888.
Dickens, Charles. Barnaby Rudge. Illustrated by Hablot K. Browne ('Phiz') and George Cattermole. London: Chapman and Hall, 1841; rpt., Bradbury & Evans, 1849.
Dickens, Charles. Barnaby Rudge. The Cheap Edition. Illustrated by H. K. Browne, J. Absolon, and F. Corbeaux. London: Chapman and Hall, 1849.
Dickens, Charles. Barnaby Rudge. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne. Original pencil drawings Barnaby and Hugh, and Mrs. Varden and Miggs, two of four extra illustrations for the Cheap Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1849.
Dickens, Charles. Barnaby Rudge and Hard Times. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. 16 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. Vol. IX.
Dickens, Charles. Barnaby Rudge — A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1874. Vol. VII.
Created 8 March 2025