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Mr. Dorrit's Transformation
Harry Furniss
lithograph
1910
13.9 x 7.4 cm vignetted
Dickens's Little Dorrit, in The Charles Dickens Library Edition, Book the Second, "Riches," Chapter 1, "Fellow Travellers," facing XII, 449.
[Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
Noon was the hour appointed for the departure. As it approached, there was not a Collegian within doors, nor a turnkey absent. The latter class of gentlemen appeared in their Sunday clothes, and the greater part of the Collegians were brightened up as much as circumstances allowed. Two or three flags were even displayed, and the children put on odds and ends of ribbon. Mr Dorrit himself, at this trying time, preserved a serious but graceful dignity. Much of his great attention was given to his brother, as to whose bearing on the great occasion he felt anxious. [Book One, "Poverty," Chapter 36, "The Marshalsea Becomes an Orphan," 442]
The illustration is an anomaly among the twenty-eight illustrations for this volume of the Charles Dickens Library Edition as it has neither supporting quotation nor a reference to a particular page; rather, Furniss directs the reader to study pages 439 to 442, in other words, ten pages ahead of the illustration that supposedly encompasses four of the eight pages in the last chapter in the first book, when the Dorrits depart from the Marshalsea in a triumphal procession, with Frederick and William arm in arm, totalling overlooking the fact that Amy is not among them. To emphasize the ransformative effect of the inheritance Furniss has made a heavy-set middle aged man wearing a dressing gown and needing a shave into svelt, elegantly dressed aristocrat. Again, however, Furniss puts no one else in the frame, perhaps to suggest William Dorrit's sense of isolation; and, whereas previous illustrators have depicted the character in the context of the Marshalsea, particularly the prison yard, Furniss provides absolutely no background details in this second portrait, for wealth has translated him from his status as "Father of the Marshalsea" to an English "lord" taking the Grand Tour through Switzerland to Italy.
Although there is no physical setting for the character study, Furniss has inserted a pair of symbolic hats. To the left, representing the past, is an older, slightly misshapen beaver wrapped in gauze, as if for a funeral; to the left beside a newly opened hatbox a shining silk hat sits awaiting the owner on the end of a steamer-trunk. And the affable, somewhat portly The Father of the Marshalsea depicted by Furniss earlier is now a rake-thin, stately aristocrat with his nose in the air and sporting an elegant white vest with fob.
Left: F. O. C. Darley's 1863 frontispiece of the scene in which William Dorrit learns of his providential inheritance, Joyful Tidings (Volume 2). Right: Phiz's scene involving the departure of the Dorrit party through the prison yard, The Marshalsea becomes an orphan (Book 1, Chapter 36; Part 11, October 1856).
Left: Sol Eytinge, Junior's interpretation of the musical younger brother, Amy's uncle, Frederick Dorrit (1867). Right: James Mahoney's reworking of the departure, with William Dorrit exhibiting a somewhat misshapen visage as a child watches the great man in awe: Through these spectators, the little procession, headed by the two brothers, moved slowly to the gate (Household Edition, Book I, Chap. 36, 217).
Dickens, Charles. Little Dorrit. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ("Phiz"). The Authentic Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1901 [rpt. 30 May 1857 volume].
_______. Little Dorrit. Frontispieces by Felix Octavius Carr Darley and Sir John Gilbert. The Household Edition. 55 vols. New York: Sheldon & Co., 1863. Vols. I-IV.
_______. Little Dorrit. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. 14 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867.
_______. Little Dorrit. Illustrated by James Mahoney. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1873. Vol. V.
_______. Little Dorrit. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. XII.
Hammerton, J. A. "Chapter 19: Little Dorrit." The Dickens Picture-Book. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. 18 vols. London: Educational Book Co., 1910. Vol. XVII, 398-427.
Created 10 February 2020
Last modified 18 November 2020