"Barnaby and His Mother" by Sol Eytinge

Barnaby and His Mother

Sol Eytinge

Wood engraving, approximately 10 cm high by 7.5 cm wide (framed)

Frontispiece for Dickens's Barnaby Rudge in the single volume Barnaby Rudge and Hard Times in the Ticknor & Fields (Boston, 1867) Diamond Edition.

In this first full-page dual character study for the first novel in the compact American publication, a whimsically dressed, blithe Barnaby, as always carrying his tame raven in a basket on his back, contrasts his plainly dressed, apprehensive mother. [Continued below]

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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Although the reader is thus introduced to the eponymous character prior to encountering even the title-page, Barnaby and his mother do not make their entrance until the third chapter, when Barnaby and the locksmith Gabriel Varden transport a wounded man (apparently the victim of footpads on the Chigwell Road, outside London) to the home of the Widow Rudge. Dickens describes Barnaby in sufficient detail that even later illustrator (after Cattermole and Phiz in the original serial) would have little difficulty in depicting the mentally challenged, weirdly dressed adolescent and his pet raven, Grip:

As he stood, at that moment, half shrinking back and half bending forward, both his face and figure were full in the strong glare of the link, and as distinctly revealed as though it had been broad day. He was about three-and-twenty years old, and though rather spare, of a fair height and strong make. His hair, of which he had a great profusion, was red, and hanging in disorder about his face and shoulders, gave to his restless looks an expression quite unearthly — enhanced by the paleness of his complexion, and the glassy lustre of his large protruding eyes. Startling as his aspect was, the features were good, and there was something even plaintive in his wan and haggard aspect. But, the absence of the soul is far more terrible in a living man than in a dead one; and in this unfortunate being its noblest powers were wanting.

His dress was of green, clumsily trimmed here and there — apparently by his own hands — with gaudy lace; brightest where the cloth was most worn and soiled, and poorest where it was at the best. A pair of tawdry ruffles dangled at his wrists, while his throat was nearly bare. He had ornamented his hat with a cluster of peacock's feathers, but they were limp and broken, and now trailed negligently down his back. Girt to his side was the steel hilt of an old sword without blade or scabbard; and some particoloured ends of ribands and poor glass toys completed the ornamental portion of his attire. The fluttered and confused disposition of all the motley scraps that formed his dress, bespoke, in a scarcely less degree than his eager and unsettled manner, the disorder of his mind, and by a grotesque contrast set off and heightened the more impressive wildness of his face. [Chapter 3, pages 28-29]

In "Barnaby Greets His Mother" (Chapter 17) and "Barnaby and Grip" (Chapter 17) Hablot Knight Browne and George Cattermole respectively had provided Eytinge with useful models for the pair.

Bibliography

Dickens, Charles. Barnaby Rudge and Hard Times. Il. Sol Eytinge, Jr. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867.

Last modified 29 October 2011