“The Death-struggle in the Lock” by Harry Furniss — twenty-eighth and final illustration for "Our Mutual Friend" (1910)

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The Death-struggle in the Lock

Harry Furniss

1910

13.7 cm x 8.9 cm, framed

Dickens's Our Mutual Friend, The Charles Dickens Library Edition, for Book 4, Chapter XV, “What was Caught in the Traps that were Set,” facing XV, 837.

“Ain't I told you.” “I'll hold you living, and I'll hold you dead,” cried Bradley, as Riderhood went over the smooth pit backward, and Bradley Headstone upon him. — Our Mutual, p. 837.

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Scanned images 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 person who scanned them and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Passage Illustrated: A Fight to the Death at the Lock House

"Let go!" said Riderhood, "or I'll get my knife out and slash you wherever I can cut you. Let go!"

Bradley was drawing to the Lock-edge. Riderhood was drawing away from it. It was a strong grapple, and a fierce struggle, arm and leg. Bradley got him round, with his back to the Lock, and still worked him backward.

"Let go!' said Riderhood. "Stop! What are you trying at? You can't drown Me. Ain't I told you that the man as has come through drowning can never be drowned? I can't be drowned."

"I can be!" returned Bradley, in a desperate, clenched voice. "I am resolved to be. "I'll hold you living, and I'll hold you dead Come down!"

Riderhood went over into the smooth pit, backward, and Bradley Headstone upon him. [Book Four, “A Turning”; Chapter XV, “What was Caught in the Traps that were Set,” pp. 836-37]

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.]

Commentary: A Fight to the Death

In The Death-Struggle in the Lock, Harry Furniss draws upon the work of two earlier British illustrators of the novel, Marcus Stone in the ultimate number of the 1864-65 nineteen-month serialisation and James Mahoney in the penultimate plate in the 1875 Household Edition volume. Whereas Stone utilizes the panoramic view of the upper Thames lock and weir in the November 1865 wood-engraving Not to be Shaken Off (see below), with an instinct for the dramatic he shifts the moment captured from the tranquil verbal sparring of the antagonists to the moment that James Mahoney elected to illustrate when, fed up with Riderhood's demands, Headstone suddenly grapples with the old salt as he prepares to tumble both of them into the water in Riderhood went over into the smooth pit backward, and Bradley Headstone upon him (see below), reinforcing to Victorian readers the power of poetic justice.

Whereas F. O. C. Darley in the fourth American "Household" Edition volume of 1866 had focussed in the frontispiece on Riderhood's surveillance of Headstone as he attempts to destroy the evidence of his involvement in what he believes to be the murder of the young lawyer in On the Track (see below), the crime-and-detection aspect of the novel, Furniss has seized upon the most suspenseful scene in the final movement of the story, which he would have recognised as related to the climactic scene in No Thoroughfare, the collaborative Wilkie Collins-Dickens novella for Christmas 1867 in All the Year Round in which the young English protagonist George Vendale wrestles with his ruthless Swiss antagonist, Jules Obenreizer, on the edge of a glacier — the scene appears in the 1877 Household Edition volume Christmas Stories, illustrated by E. G. Dalziel, He became roused to the knowledge that Obenreizer had set upon him, and that they were struggling desperately in the snow (see below), although Furniss's interpretation, like Mahoney's in 1875, may well have been conditioned by Charles Green's 1868 Illustrated Library Edition wood-engraving No Thoroughfare (see below). Although the mountain scene is set in the Simplon Pass, near the village of Brieg, above Lausanne, the text realised — two figures in a natural setting grappling with one another and about to experience a fatal fall — is decidedly similar to this in the fourth book's fifteenth chapter; however, in the 1864-65 novel the adversaries are the greedy working-class villain Riderhood and his neurotic middle-class counterpart, the obsessed and psychologically damaged schoolmaster. Whereas the reader is engaged on behalf of neither figure in the combat, in the 1867 novella the reader is on the edge of his seat to discover whether the English protagonist lives or dies. Since Furniss in the Charles Dickens Library Edition illustrated both Our Mutual Friend and No Thoroughfare and had undoubtedly studied the illustrations of earlier British editions, he would have recognized the parallels as well as the significant differences between various artists' handlings of the two suspenseful scenes from the 1860s.

In his version of the Stone and Mahoney illustrations for the 1864-65 novel, Furniss shows the pair hurtling through the air towards the frigid Thames water in the lock rather than still on the right bank near the lock stairs, partially covered in snow. The pair are distinguished principally by their hats: whereas Riderhood is still wearing his proletarian fur cap (centre), Headstone has already lost his top-hat (right). To balance the figures in the centre of the composition, Furniss has made the snow-covered lock-keeper's house much more substantial than the mere "hut" in the earlier illustrations. Furniss's illustration of Lizzie Hexam's recue of Eugene Wrayburn (preceding this) likewise reinforces his interest in these active, secondary characters and his artistic fascination with the dramatic scenes of the novel.

Comparable Chapter Illustrations in the original & Household Editions, 1865-1875

Left: Darley's 1866 frontispiece, showing Riderhood, following Headstone to the river bank in Book 4, Chapter 7, "Better to be Cain than Abel, On the Track (New York "Household Edition," vol. 4). Right:Sol Eytinge, Junior's psychological study Bradley Headstone and Charley Hexam (1910) prepares reader for Headstone's irrational and paranoid behaviour.

Above: Stone's sentimental interpretation of the scene in which, rather than be blackmailed, Headstone ponders attacking Rogue Riderhood by the river lock, Not to be Shaken Off (Book 4, "A Turning," Ch. 15, "What was Caught in the Traps that were Set," November 1865, the final, "double" number).

Above: Mahoney's interpretation of the violent scene in which, rather than be blackmailed, Headstone determines to do away with Rogue Riderhood even if doing so means self-destruction, in Riderhood went over into the smooth pit backward, and Bradley Headstone upon him (Book 4, "A Turning," Ch. 15, "What was Caught in the Traps that were Set").

Comparable Scenes in "No Thoroughfare" (1867): 1868-1910

Left: Furniss's The Struggle on the Mountain (1910). Centre: E. G. Dalziel's "He became roused to the knowledge that Obenreizer had set upon him, and that they were struggling desperately in the snow." (1877). Right: Charles Green's dramatic illustration of the struggle in "No Thoroughfare" (1868).

Bibliography

Dickens, Charles. Our Mutual Friend. Illustrated by Marcus Stone [40 composite wood-block engravings]. The Authentic Edition of the Works of Charles Dickens. 21 Vols. London: Chapman and Hall; New York: Charles Scribners' Sons, 1901 [based on the original nineteen-month serial and the two-volume edition of 1865]. Vol. XIV.

_____. Our Mutual Friend. Illustrated by F. O. C. Darley and John Gilbert. The Works of Charles Dickens. The Household Edition. New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1866. Vol. 4.

_____. Our Mutual Friend. Illustrated by F. O. Our Mutual Friend. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. 14 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. Vol. VIII.

_____. Our Mutual Friend. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Works of Charles Dickens. The Illustrated Household Edition. Boston: Ticknor and Field; Lee and Shepard; New York: Charles T. Dillingham, 1870 [first published in The Diamond Edition, 1867].

_____. Our Mutual Friend. Illustrated by James Mahoney [58 composite wood-block engravings]. The Works of Charles Dickens. The Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall; New York: Harper & Bros., 1875.

_____. Our Mutual Friend. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book Co., 1910. Vol. 15.

_____. Christmas Stories. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book Company, 1910. 2 vols.

_____. Christmas Stories from "Household Words" and "All The Year Round". Illustrated by Fred Walker, F. A. Fraser, Harry French, E. G. Dalziel, J. Mahony [sic], Townley Green, and Charles Green. Centenary Edition. 36 vols. London: Chapman & Hall; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1911. Vol. II.

_____. Christmas Stories. Illustrated by Edward Dalziel, Harry French, F. A. Fraser, James Mahoney, Townley Green, and Charles Green. The Oxford Illustrated Dickens. Oxford, New York, and Toronto: Oxford U.P., 1956, rpt. 1989.

_____. Christmas Stories from "Household Words" and "All the Year Round". Illustrated by E. G. Dalziel. The Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1877. Rpt., 1892.

"Our Mutual Friend — Fifty-eight Illustrations by James Mahoney." Scenes and Characters from the Works of Charles Dickens, Being Eight Hundred and Sixty-six Drawings by Fred Barnard, Gordon Thomson, Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz), J. McL. Ralston, J. Mahoney, H. French, Charles Green, E. G. Dalziel, A. B. Frost, F. A. Fraser, and Sir Luke Fildes. London: Chapman and Hall, 1907.

Vann, J. Don. "Our Mutual Friend, twenty parts in nineteen monthly instalments, May 1864—November 1865." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: The Modern Language Association, 1985. 74.

Created 10 January 2016

Last modified 4 August 2025