"The Three Warriors."
Sol Eytinge, Junior
1867
Wood-engraving
10.2 cm high x 7.5 cm wide
Frontispiece for Dickens's The Uncommercial Traveller and Additional Christmas Stories in the Ticknor & Fields (Boston, 1867) Diamond Edition.
[Click on image to enlarge it and mouse over text for links.]
The three comic-opera soldiers and the relatively flat backdrop prepare the reader for Dickens's surreal vision of real-life farce in a Strasbourg street outside the shop of Straudenheim. [Commentary continues below]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
Passage Illustrated
After leaning so far out of the window, that I confidently expected to see their heels tilt up, Straudenheim and the lean man drew their heads in and shut the window. Presently, the house door secretly opened, and they slowly and spitefully crept forth into the pouring rain. They were coming over to me (I thought) to demand satisfaction for my looking at the housekeeper, when they plunged into a recess in the architecture under my window and dragged out the puniest of little soldiers, begirt with the most innocent of little swords. The tall glazed head-dress of this warrior, Straudenheim instantly knocked off, and out of it fell two sugar-sticks, and three or four large lumps of sugar. [p. 47]
Commentary
Although Chapman and Hall raced to publish an edition of The Uncommercial Traveller essays in volume form in 1861, this initial anthology contained only seventeen articles, and no illustrations. Prior to the 1874 Illustrated Library Edition, George J. Pinwell had provided Chapman and Hall with a single illustration for the 1868 anthology of The Uncommercial Traveller; F. G. Kitton, however, does not indicate whether any of the four 1874 illustrations repeats the single wood-engraving of the 1865 Cheap Edition. Rather than attempting to capture the stage humour of the Staudenheim scene offered by the 1870s Household Edition illustrators on either side of the Atlantic, Pinwell offers a serious and realistic study from life in the Paris streets, with Dickens himself making an appearance. For "Travelling Abroad," originally published in All the Year Round on 7 April 1860, Sol Eytinge in the 1867 Diamond Edition compilation of essays from The Uncommercial Traveller realized in a markedly unrealistic style the three "warriors," who of course are hardly even credible as uniformed officials, let alone genuine soldiers. Eytinge's mistake is that he tries to make his subjects look funny rather than to describe their farcical behaviour in their interaction with Straudenheim and his companion.
Illustrations Relevant from the Charles Dickens Edition (1868) and Household Editions (1876-77)
Leftt: George Pinwell's "Leaving the Morgue" (1868). Centre: E. G. Dalziel's "The tall glazed head-dress of this warrior Straudenheim instantly knocked off" (1877). Right: C. S. Reinhart's "And shook all his ten fingers in his face" (1878). [Click on images to enlarge them.]
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. Christmas Books and The Uncommercial Traveller. Il. Harry Furniss. Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book Company, 1910. Vol. 10.
Dickens, Charles. The Uncommercial Traveller. Works of Charles Dickens. Household Edition. 55 vols. Illustrated by F. O. C. Darley and John Gilbert. New York: Sheldon and Co., 1865.
Dickens, Charles. The Uncommercial Traveller. Illustrated by Marcus Stone [W. M., and George Pinwell]. Illustrated Library Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1868, rpt., 1893.Dickens, Charles. The Uncommercial Traveller and Additional Christmas Stories. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Junior. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867.
Dickens, Charles. Christmas Stories. Illustrated by E. A. Abbey. The Household Edition. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1876.
Dickens, Charles. The Uncommercial Traveller, Hard Times, and The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Illustrated by C. S. Reinhart and Luke Fildes. The Household Edition. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1876.
Dickens, Charles. The Uncommercial Traveller. Illustrated by E. G. Dalziel. The Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1877.
Hammerton, J. A. The Dickens Picture-Book. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book, 1912.
Kitton, Frederic G. Dickens and His Illustrators. 1899. Rpt. Honolulu: U. Press of the Pacific, 2004.
Parker, David. "Christmas Books and Stories, 1844 to 1854." Christmas and Charles Dickens. New York: AMS Press, 2005. Pp. 221-282.
Scenes and characters from the works of Charles Dickens; being eight hundred and sixty-six drawings, by Fred Barnard, Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz); J. Mahoney; Charles Green; A. B. Frost; Gorgon Thomson; J. McL. Ralston; H. French; E. G. Dalziel; F. A. Fraser, and Sir Luke Fildes; printed from the original woodblocks engraved for "The Household Edition.". New York: Chapman and Hall, 1908. Copy in the Robarts Library, University of Toronto.
Schlicke, Paul, ed. "The Uncommercial Traveller." The Oxford Companion to Dickens. Oxford and New York: Oxford U. P., 1999. Pp. 100-101.
Slater, Michael, and John Drew, eds. Dickens' Journalism: 'The Uncommercial Traveller' and Other Papers, 1859-70. The Dent Uniform Edition of Dickebs' Journalism, Vol. 4. London: J. M. Dent, 2000.
Thomas, Deborah A. Dickens and The Short Story. Philadelphia: U. Pennsylvania Press, 1982.
Last modified 2 April 2014