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Portrait of Barnaby Rudge
John Absolon
Engraver: E. Finden
1849
Steel engraving
12.5 cm high by 8.8 cm wide (5 inches high by 3 ½ inches wide), framed, facing p. 94.
Dickens's Barnaby Rudge, The Cheap Edition's title-page vignette (1849)
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham
‘You must not go out to-night. There are ghosts and dreams abroad.’
‘Ay?’ said Barnaby, in a frightened whisper.
‘It is not safe to stir. We must leave this place to-morrow.’
‘This place! This cottage — and the little garden, mother!’
‘Yes! To-morrow morning at sunrise. We must travel to London; lose ourselves in that wide place — there would be some trace of us in any other town — then travel on again, and find some new abode.’
Little persuasion was required to reconcile Barnaby to anything that promised change. In another minute, he was wild with delight; in another, full of grief at the prospect of parting with his friends the dogs; in another, wild again; then he was fearful of what she had said to prevent his wandering abroad that night, and full of terrors and strange questions. His light-heartedness in the end surmounted all his other feelings, and lying down in his clothes to the end that he might be ready on the morrow, he soon fell fast asleep before the poor turf fire.
His mother did not close her eyes, but sat beside him, watching. Every breath of wind sounded in her ears like that dreaded footstep at the door, or like that hand upon the latch, and made the calm summer night, a night of horror. At length the welcome day appeared. When she had made the little preparations which were needful for their journey, and had prayed upon her knees with many tears, she roused Barnaby, who jumped up gaily at her summons.
His clothes were few enough, and to carry Grip was a labour of love. [Chapter XLVI, 212]
Virtually every British and American nineteenth-century edition, including such sparsely illustrated editions such as that issued by Collins Clear-type Press, have included at least one representation of the eponymous character. Whether by himself or shown in action (for example, as in the title-page vignette Household Edition, where Barnard has shown him carrying the standard of the Gordon rioters), Barnaby is physically a dominating figure. In the 1841 serialization that appeared weekly in Master Humphrey’s Clock Barnaby ten times in some seventy illustrations, usually in the context of the action and accompanied by other characters such as his mother. A constant fixture in these many plates is Grip, the boy’s pet raven and guardian spirit. Indeed, Barnaby seems more comfortable in the natural world rather than in human society, and is often by himself on the heath, as in Darley’s Character Studies from Dickens (1888). Whereas other illustrators have interpreted the adolescent as a child in an adult body, Absolon here in the 1849 Cheap Edition emphasizes his uncanny almost androgynous childishness, with large eyes, peculiar smile, and shining, chubby cheeks. The portrait is complemented by a realistic but lifeless Grip, who might well be a taxidermist’s creation rather than nature’s. However, typical of nineteenth-century representations of Barnaby is his distinctive costume, notably the large hat accentuated by the signature peacock feather. Through that haunted smile Absolon challenges us to decide what manner of protagonist Dickens has created: is this peculiar figure, the only male depicted in the five Cheap Edition plates, an example of arrested cognitive development or simply a perpetual child?
Left to right, first row: Phiz's tailpiece for Vol.II in Clock makes Barnaby and the raven the presiding spirits of the first movement of the novel: Barnaby and Grip (Chapter XII, 27 March 1841) and Phiz's somewhat theatrical presentation of Barnaby and Mrs. Rudge, Barnaby Greets His Mother (Chapter XVII, 17 April 1841). Bottom row, left to right: Phiz's study of Barnaby, incarcerated but blissfully unaware of what awaits him as a result of his role in the riots: Barnaby in Newgate (Chapter LVIII, 4 September 1841); Phiz's final study of Barnaby: Father and Son (Chapter LXII, 18 September 1841); and A. H. Buckland's frontispiece for the Collins Clear-type Press edition (1900): Barnaby was making puzzles with a skein of string (Chapter VI).
Left: Felix Octavius Carr Darley's character study in photogravure of Barnaby on the heath: Barnaby Rudge and Grip the Raven (1888). Left of centre: Fred Barnard's Household Edition title-page vignette Barnaby and the Rioters' Standard (1874). Right of centre: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s frontispiece for the Diamond Edition, Barnaby Rudge and His Mother (1867). Right: Harry Furniss's frontispiece for the Charles Dickens Library Edition, Barnaby and Grip the Raven (1910).
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.
Vann, J. Don. "Barnaby Rudge in Master Humphrey's Clock, 13 February-27 November 1841." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: Modern Language Association, 1985. Pp. 65-66.
Created 10 March 2025