"Fancy a party, all Mulligans" — Harry Furniss on "Mrs. Perkins's Ball" (1911)

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"Fancy a party, all Mulligans"

Harry Furniss

1911

14 cm high by 9.3 cm wide (5 ½ by 3 ¾ inches), vignetted

"Fancy a party, all Mulligans"

Mrs. Perkins's Ball, facing p. 7.

Furniss's young Mrs. Perkins imagines the waltz in progress with a room full of fashionably dressed young women dancing with wild, laughing, hirsute Irishmen.

Scanned image and text 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 it and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Passage Illustrated: The Wild Irish Invade a London Ball

"Ye don't mean seriously that a Mulligan is not fit company for a Perkins?"

"My dear fellow, how could you think I could so far insult you?" says I.

"Well, then," says he,"that's a matter settled, and we go."

What the deuce was I to do? I wrote to Mrs. Perkins; and that kind lady replied, that she would receive The Mulligan, or any other of my friends, with the greatest cordiality. "Fancy a party, all Mulligans!" thought I, with a secret terror. ["The Mulligan (of Ballymulligan), and How We Went to Mrs. Perkins's Ball," 7]

Comment

William Makepeace Thackeray published the illustrated novella Mrs. Perkins's Ball under the pseudonym "M. A. [Michael Angelo] Titmarsh" at Christmas in 1846.

"Illustration and Irony — Thackeray's Christmas Books."

Bibliography

Furniss, Harry. "Fancy a party, all Mulligans." Illustration for Mrs. Perkins's Ball. William Makepeace Thackeray's Christmas Books. With illustrations by the author and Harry Furniss. The Harry Furniss Centenary Edition. London: Macmillan and Co., 1911. Pp. 3-74.

Created 13 July 2022