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The Meeting of the Pickwick Club
Harry Furniss
1910
14.4 cm x 9.5 cm, vignetted
Dickens's Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, The Charles Dickens Library Edition, Chapter One, facing II, 4.
[Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
What a study for an artist did that exciting scene present! The eloquent Pickwick, with one hand gracefully concealed behind his coat tails, and the other waving in air to assist his glowing declamation; his elevated position revealing those tights and gaiters, which, had they clothed an ordinary man, might have passed without observation, but which, when Pickwick clothed them — if we may use the expression — inspired involuntary awe and respect; surrounded by the men who had volunteered to share the perils of his travels, and who were destined to participate in the glories of his discoveries. [Chapter I, "The Pickwickians," page 3]
After Phiz's specifically avoiding this traditional opening scene for the Household Edition volume of 1874, Furniss has quite deliberately emulated the original opening illustration by Robert Seymour, Mr. Pickwick addresses the Club (April 1836) in order to introduce not only the eponymous character, but also the chief Pickwickians and their mandate. Furniss was, as J. A. Hammerton notes in his preface, "The Story of This Book," but the latest in a long line of "artists who have exercised their pencils on the Pickwick group of characters" (vii). Although perhaps as cartoonish as Seymour's figures grouped around the table, Furniss's are rather more animated, and the Edwardian illustrator has individualised them by costume and posture, as well as (in Seymour's version) their positions relative to Pickwick, standing on the Windsor chair to address the club. Indeed, instead of after-dinner ease, Furniss has his Pickwickians in vociferous debate beneath the benign gaze of the portrait of their founder, upper right. The other pictures comment on the sporting nature of the club, who also apparently engage in billiards, if one is to credit the rack lying on the floor in the foreground. Reference to the text (as suggested by the caption "The eloquent declamation. — Pickwick, 3") reveals that Snodgrass and the pseudo-sportsman Winkle are seated in the foreground (right), whereas Tupman is the member looking out from behind Pickwick, and the man at the bottom of the table must be the Secretary, Joseph Smiggers — who completely disappears from the subsequent narrative. The contentious point through which Pickwick has elicited cries of "No!" is that "human weaknesses" may impede their quest for "enduring fame" (4) in the pursuit of field sports and the rather contradictory goal of benefitting the human race (presumably an oblique allusion to the society's pursuits in the areas of science and natural history). Both Seymour and Furniss show a dozen club members, but only the earlier artists shows fowling pieces and fishing gear in the foreground.
Left: The original Robert Seymour steel-engraving which accompanied the initial monthly number and greatly influenced later illustrators' conceptions of the club members, Mr. Pickwick Addresses the Club (April 1836). Right: The Sol Eytinge, Jr., characterisation of the group, The Pickwick Club (Diamond Edition, 1867).
Above: In the American Household Edition, Thomas Nast's focus on the Chair rather than Pickwick in the uncaptioned headpiece for the Household Edition, Secretary Joseph Smiggers presents the club with its charter (1873).
Clarke, Clayton J. ('Kyd'). The Characters of Charles Dickens portrayed in a series of original watercolours by "Kyd." London, Paris, and New York: Raphael Tuck & Sons, n. d.
Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Checkmark and Facts On File, 1999.
Dickens, Charles. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ("Phiz"). The Authentic Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1901 [rpt. of the 1868 volume, based on the 30 May 1857 volume].
_____. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. 14 vols.
_____. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Thomas Nast. The Household Edition. 16 vols. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1873. Vol. 4.
_____. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ('Phiz'). The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1874. Vol. 5.
_____. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. 2.
Created 4 July 2019
Last modified 4 February 2020