"Pip and The Convict" by Sol Eytinge

Pip and The Convict

Sol Eytinge

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

First illustration for Dickens's Great Expectations in the single volume A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations in the Ticknor & Fields (Boston, 1867) Diamond Edition.

In this first full-page dual character study for the second novel in the compact American publication, a bearded Magwitch confronts the small boy sitting on the enormous tombstone in the churchyard, exactly as in the memorable opening chapter of the novel. This somewhat static illustration conveys a good sense of the initiating incident in terms of setting, particularly in terms of the weed-infested graveyard, but not in terms of the terror that the protagonist experienced as Magwitch seemed to rise from the graves at the side of the church porch moments before.

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

[You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Mesmerised by the ragged felon, the boy sits atop a mouldering gravemarker, the words "Sacred to the Memory of" barely decipherable. Thus, the precise passage illustrated would seem to be this, even though the convict is not yet eating the boy's heel of bread:

When the church came to itself — for he was so sudden and strong that he made it go head over heels before me, and I saw the steeple under my feet — when the church came to itself, I say, I was seated on a high tombstone, trembling, while he ate the bread ravenously. [[Chapter One, 1 December 1860, All the Year Round]

In "Pip and the Convict," a full-page dual character study in the compact American publication, a bearded Magwitch, faithfully depicted as "A fearful man, all in grey, with a great iron on his leg" and a rag tied about his head in lieu of a hat, and "broken" shoes, confronts a boy in short jacket and trousers. The one illustration to which Eytinge would have access in preparing this composition, John McLenan's "You young dog!" said the man, licking his lips at me, "What fat cheeks you ha' got!" in the 24 November 1860 number of Harper's Weekly, is more vigorous in its sense of the convict and the setting, although McLenan's Pip is rather too big for the "undersized" boy of the text. In McLenan's middle-distance picture, the convict is indeed ragged, torn by weeds, and voracious; in Eytinge's close-up the salient feature is the boy's expression of amazement.

Bibliography

Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization. Il. John McLenan. Vol. IV: 707.

Dickens, Charles. ("Boz."). Great Expectations. With thirty-four illustrations from original designs by John McLenan. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson (by agreement with Harper & Bros., New York), 1861.

Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867.

Last modified 1 September 2011