Richard and Ada Married (702) — Chapter 51, 3 ¾ by 5 ½ inches (9.4 cm high x 14.1 cm wide), vignetted, twenty-fourth illustration in Charles Dickens's Bleak House, Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910), facing XI, 705. Original caption: He was leaning on his arm and looking at the ground when my darling, with her golden hair falling like sunlight, turned her face to me.. [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Passage Illustrated: The Couple Reveal Their Secret Marriage
"Sometimes I hope, my dear,and sometimes I — don't quite despair, but nearly. I get," said Richard, relinquishing my hand gently and walking across the room, "so tired!"
He took a few turns up and down and sunk upon the sofa. "I get," he repeated gloomily, "so tired. It is such weary, weary work!"
He was leaning on his arm saying these words in a meditative voice and looking at the ground when my darling rose, put off her bonnet, kneeled down beside him with her golden hair falling like sunlight on his head, clasped her two arms round his neck, and turned her face to me. Oh, what a loving and devoted face I saw!
"Esther, dear," she said very quietly, "I am not going home again."
A light shone in upon me all at once.
"Never any more. I am going to stay with my dear husband. We have been married above two months. Go home without me, my own Esther;I shall never go home any more!" With those words my darling drew his head down on her breast and held it there. And if ever in my life I saw a love that nothing but death could change, I saw it then before me. [Chapter LI, "Enlightened," 493]
Other Illustrations of Ada and Richard revealing their secret, 1873 and 1910
Left: Phiz's original serial engraving features a dissolute Richard: Light (June 1853). Right: Fred Barnard's 1873 Household Edition composite woodblock wood-engraving features a badly run-down Richard: "Esther, dear," she said very quietly, "I am not going home again."
Related Material, including Other Illustrated Editions of Bleak House
- Bleak House (homepage)
- Phiz's Illustrations for Bleak House (March 1852 - September 1853)
- Sir John Gilbert's Frontispiece in the New York edition (Vol. 1, 1863)
- O. C. Darley's Frontispiece in the New York edition (Vol. 2, 1863)
- O. C. Darley's Frontispiece in the New York edition (Vol. 3, 1863)
- O. C. Darley's Frontispiece in the New York edition (Vol. 4, 1863)
- Sol Eytinge, Junior's 16 Diamond Edition Illustrations (1867)
- Fred Barnard's 61 illustrations for the Household Edition (1872)
- Kyd's five Player's Cigarette Cards, 1910
Scanned image, colour correction, sizing, caption, and commentary by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose, as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image, and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. New York and Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1990.
"Bleak House — Sixty-one Illustrations by Fred Barnard." 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.
The Characters of Charles Dickens pourtrayed in a series of original watercolours by "Kyd." London, Paris, and New York: Raphael Tuck & Sons, n. d.
Darley, Felix Octavius Carr. Character Sketches from Dickens. Philadelphia: Porter and Coates, 1888.
Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998.
Dickens, Charles. Bleak House. Illustrated by F. O. C. Darley and John Gilbert. The Works of Charles Dickens. The Household Edition. New York: Sheldon and Company, 1863. Vols. 1-4.
_______. Bleak House, with 61 illustrations by Fred Barnard. Household Edition. 21 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1873. IV.
_______. Bleak House. Illustrated by Harry Furniss [28 original lithographs]. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. XI.
Hammerton, J. A. "Chapter 18: Bleak House." The Dickens Picture-Book. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book, 1910. XVII. 366-97.
Kyd [Clayton J. Clarke]. Characters from Dickens. Nottingham: John Player & Sons, 1910.
Vann, J. Don. "Bleak House, twenty parts in nineteen monthly instalments, March 1852 — September 1853." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: Modern Language Association, 1985. 69.
Created 19 March 2021