"Anthony and Jonas Chuzzlewit and Chuffey," the sixth full-page illustration by Sol Eytinge, Jr. 7.4 cm high by 9.9 cm wide. The Diamond Edition of Dickens's The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867). Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Two illustrations by Phiz. Left: Mr. Jonas Chuzzlewit Entertains his Cousins. Right: The dissolution of a partnership. [Click on these images and those below to enlarge them and to obtain additional information.]
Readers of the original 1842-43 serial first encountered the villainous masher of the Chuzzlewit clan, Jonas, his miserly and decrepit father, and the devoted family retainer Old Chuffey in Phiz's May 1843 illustration for chapter 11 — "Mr. Jonas Chuzzlewit Entertains his Cousins" (see above), which satisfactorily depicts Jonas and Cherry Pecksniff, but relegates Jonas's father and the servant to the background, falling asleep before the fireplace.
Two illustrations by Fred Barnard. Left: The door of a small glass office, which was partitioned off from the rest of the room, was slowly opened, and a little blear-eyed, weazen-faced, ancient man came creeping out. Right: "Matter!" cried the voice of Mr. Pecksniff, as Pecksniff in the flesh smiled amiably upon him. "The matter, Mr. Jonas!".
On the other hand, Fred Barnard's 1872 woodcut introducing Chuffey offers a far more interesting study of the confidential clerk, although it is somewhat less revealing of Jonas's personality, a deficiency that his other plate (at right above) more than adequately addresses. Jonas is a brute: mercenary, domineering, and egocentric. Eytinge, for his part, is more interested in the relationship between the doting parent, the truculent son, and the ancient retainer established by the scene that opens chapter 18:
"What a cold spring it is!" whimpered old Anthony, drawing near the evening fire, "It was a warmer season, sure, when I was young!"
"You needn't go scorching your clothes into holes, whether it was or not," observed the amiable Jonas, raising his eyes from yesterday's newspaper, "Broadcloth ain't so cheap as that comes to."
"A good lad!" cried the father, breathing on his cold hands, and feebly chafing them against each other. "A prudent lad! He never delivered himself up to the vanities of dress. No, no!"
"I don't know but I would, though, mind you, if I could do it for nothing," said his son, as he resumed the paper.
"Ah!" chuckled the old man. "If, indeed! But it's very cold."
"Let the fire be!" cried Mr. Jonas, stopping his honoured parent's hand in the use of the poker. "Do you mean to come to want in your old age, that you take to wasting now?" [Chapter 18; Diamond Edition, p. 173]
The illustration is decidedly undramatic, but such seems to have been Eytinge's intention; otherwise, he might have emulated Phiz's realisation of a moment of far greater narrative interest later in that same August 1843 chapter, "The Dissolution of a Partnership" (see above), when Anthony Chuzzlewit collapses and Chuffey (rather than Jonas) comes to the old man's aid.
Bibliography
Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. Oxford and New York: Oxford U. P., 1988.
Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Checkmark and Facts On File, 1998.
Dickens, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Il. Sol Eytinge, Jr. Engraved by A. V. S. Anthony. The Diamond Edition. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867.
Dickens, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit (1842-43). Il. Hablot Knight Browne ("Phiz"). London: Chapman and Hall, 1843.
Hammerton, J. A. The Dickens Picture-Book. London: Educational Book Co., 1910.
Kitton, Frederic G. Dickens and His Illustrators. 1899. Rpt. Honolulu: U. Press of the Pacific, 2004.
Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.
Steig, Michael. Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U. P., 1978.
Last modified 2 May 2012