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Characters in the Story
Harry Furniss
1910
14.5 x 9.4 cm, framed
Second illustration for The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit in the Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910), facing VII, frontispiece.
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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Dickens's full cast of characters does not appear in the ornate border, which in this edition is illustrator Harry Furniss's artistic response to the monthly wrappers designed by such early illustrators as George Cruikshank and Hablot Knight Browne. Although the eponymous character, Young Martin, appears in a conspicuous position, top centre, other well-known characters are accorded greater prominence, notably Seth Pecksniff and his daughters (upper left) and the inimitable Sairey Gamp (lower left). Some of the poses here provide the reader with premonitory snapshots of the full-page plates in the series — for example, Mark Tapley's taking leave of the village at the finger-post (upper right).
Although Dickens's original illustrator, Phiz, depicted a significant number of characters and situations in the novel, the 1843 monthly wrapper which Phiz designed is largely allegorical, so that this particular book's monthly parts were encased in green paper whose design did not convey much about either the characters or the significant scenes in the story, perhaps because Dickens chose not tell his illustrator much about the trajectory of the novel as Phiz was designing the monthly wrapper (left). Furniss, on the other hand, with perhaps a view to such later wrappers as that for A Tale of Two Cities (1859), which does present a number of specific characters and scenes, uses the ornate border of the title-page to showcase of a majority of the seventy-three named characters in the 1843-44 picaresque novel.
Since The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit was a nineteen-month serialisation, a sprawling, transatlantic narrative with a large cast of humorous characters, it was well suited to the whimsical style and visual humour of Phiz. Moreover, with its abundant caricatures directed at the exposure of folly and hypocrisy on two continents and in two societies, it was the ideal vehicle for the comic genius and Expressionistic style of Dickens's last great Victorian illustrator, Harry Furniss. His studies of Seth Pecksniff in particular reveal the hyperbolic character's fatuous, unctuous, and self-aggrandizing nature, whether he is posturing before the crowd at the laying of the foundation stone in chapter thirty-five, asserting his leadership of the Chuzzlewits in the fourth chapter, dismissing Tom Pinch in chapter thirty-one, or introducing his daughters to the recently arrived Young Martin in chapter five — in total, Furniss depicts the pious fraud seven times in twenty-nine illustrations in the Charles Dickens Library Edition.
Upper right to upper left: Pecksniff and his daughters, Merry and Cherry; Old Martin (in scull cap) and Mary Graham; young Martin, bust of Pecksniff, Tom Pinch; Upper right to lower right: Mark Tapley at the finger post; Zephaniah Scadder, the Eden land-agent; Jefferson Brick and Colonel Diver; Bailey, Jr., Ruth Pinch; Poll Sweedlepipe and Mr. Mould, the undertaker; John Westlock and Lewsome; Lower right to lower left: Mrs. Lupin, publican of The Blue Dragon; Old Chuffey; Constable Chevy Slyme; Jonas, Tigg Montague, and Anthony Chuzzlewit; Nadgett the detective; Lower left to upper left: Mrs. Gamp and Betsey Prigg; The Copper Founder; Ruth Pinch making a pie; the ladies of the American literary league; irascible man and tearful wife (Mr. Spottletoe and Mrs. Spottletoe); Augustus Moddle and Bailey, Junior.
Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. New York and Oxford: Oxford U. , 1990.
Dickens, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne. London: Chapman and Hall, 1844.
__________. Martin Chuzzlewit. Works of Charles Dickens. Household Edition. 55 vols. Illustrated by F. O. C. Darley and John Gilbert. New York: Sheldon and Co., 1863. Vols. 1 to 4.
__________. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Junior. The Diamond Edition. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867.
__________. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1872. Vol. 2.
__________. Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. 7.
Guerard, Albert J. "Martin Chuzzlewit: The Novel as Comic Entertainment." The Triumph of the Novel: Dickens, Dostoevsky, Faulkner. Chicago & London: U. Chicago , 1976, 235-60.
Hammerton, J. A. Ch. 15, "Martin Chuzzlewit." The Dickens Picture-Book: A Record of the Dickens Illustrations with 600 Illustrations and a Frontispiece by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vois. London: Educational Book, 1910. XVII, 266-93.
Steig, Michael. "III. From Caricature to Progress: Master Humphrey's Clock and Martin Chuzzlewit." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U. , 1978, 51-85.
__________. "Martin Chuzzlewit's Progress by Dickens and Phiz." Dickens Studies Annual 2 (1972): 119-49.
Vann, J. Don. Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: Modern Language Association, 1985.
Created 21 January 2016
Last modified 17 January 2020