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"Little Dorrit and Her Father," the first full-page illustration, facing the title-page of the Diamond edition by Sol Eytinge, Jr. Charles Dickens's Little Dorrit (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1871), frontispiece. 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.]

The first illustration — "Little Dorrit and Her Father" — introduces the novel's focal characters. The dual character study is different from others in Eytinge's Diamond Edition sequences of sixteen for each volume in that it post-dates Eytinge's 1869 visit to London and Gadshill. As is typical of these studies, Eytinge appears to have in mind no particular moment in the narrative. William Dorrit, Amy's father, known as "The Father of the Marshalsea" because he has been incarcerated in that debtors' prison for so many years — twenty-five, in fact — is an amiable but utterly impractical middle-aged gentleman whom Dickens based in part upon his own father, John Dickens. Like the eler Dickens, William Dorrit is providentially released from the debtors' prison by an inheritance, although the Dorrit windfall is considerably larger than that which John Dickens received. Amy, William's youngest child, born in the prison, has acquired the nickname "Little Dorrit." At the time that the story opens, the industrious, self-denying Amy is about twenty-two, even though Eytinge's plate makes her look much younger.

Bibliography

Dickens, Charles. Little Dorrit. Il. Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1871.

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Last modified 13 February 2011