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Little Dorrit
Harry Furniss
1910
14.6 cm high x 9.5 cm wide, framed
Dickens's Little Dorrit, frontispiece for The Charles Dickens Library Edition, complementing Book the First, "Poverty," Chapter 36, "The Marshalsea becomes an Orphan," or Book the Second, "Riches," Chapter 34, "Gone," facing XII, the title-page.
[Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
They passed very quietly along the yard; for no one was there, though many heads were stealthily peeping from the windows. Only one face, familiar of old, was in the Lodge. When they had both accosted it, and spoken many kind words, Little Dorrit turned back one last time with her hand stretched out, saying, "Good-bye, good John! I hope you will live very happy, dear!"
Then they went up the steps of the neighbouring Saint George's Church, and went up to the altar, where Daniel Doyce was waiting in his paternal character. And there was Little Dorrit's old friend who had given her the Burial Register for a pillow; full of admiration that she should come back to them to be married, after all.
And they were married with the sun shining on them through the painted figure of Our Saviour on the window. And they went into the very room where Little Dorrit had slumbered after her party, to sign the Marriage Register. And there, Mr. Pancks (destined to be chief clerk to Doyce and Clennam, and afterwards partner in the house), sinking the Incendiary in the peaceful friend, looked in at the door to see it done, with Flora gallantly supported on one arm and Maggy on the other, and a back-ground of John Chivery and father and other turnkeys who had run round for the moment, deserting the parent Marshalsea for its happy child. [Book the Second, "Riches," Chapter 34, "Gone," 859-60]
Fin-de-siécle illustrator Harry Furniss's setting the keynote for the 1855-57 novel by depicting the diminutive Amy Dorrit's passing out from the main gateway of the Marshalsea Debtors' Prison in the Borough, south of the City of London proper. However, at the end of the first book, "Poverty," Amy does not, like her father, uncle, and sister, make a triumphal exit from the Marshalsea to the cheers of the other inmates in College Yard. In fact, her family have entirely forgotten her until it is time for their carriage to pull away. But only the faithful John Chivery attends her final departure.
Given the presence of elderly gentlemen who would seem to be her Uncle Frederick and her father, William Dorrit, the picture seems to be a realisation of that moment in Book the First, "Poverty," Chapter 36, "The Marshalsea becomes an Orphan," when Amy and her family , having received an inheritance, heroically depart from the Marshalsea. However, since Furniss has made Amy Dorrit the focal character, this would seem to her final departure from the Marshalsea — to marry Arthur Clennam in nearby St. George's — in Book the Second, "Riches," Chapter 34, "Gone." Perhaps Harry Furniss has conflated these two departures into a single scene in an almost surrealistic manner since both Amy's father and uncle have died by the time that Amy marries Clennam. Furniss, as is consistent with the spirit of the dawning twentieth century, does not show Amy as weak (carried in Clennam's arms, senseless) or as a extension of the novel's other protagonist, her husband. Rather, he re-fashions the story to provide Amy with her own moment of triumph as she leaves the shadows of the prison in her own right, a free and independent entity at last.
Left: Phiz's original serial illustration of the same scene in the title-page vignette, with only a turnkey to see her off, Little Dorrit leaving The Marshalsea (June 1857). Right: James Mahoney's version of the closing of the novel, with Arthur and Amy Clennam leaving St. George's with little fanfare, Little Dorrit and Arthur Clennam leaving the church (1873).
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Created 23 May 2016
Last modified 29 January 2020