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Passage Illustrated: The Bowyer's Daughter, Abandoned by her Lover, Returns

One night in May — it was her birthnight, and twenty years since she had left her home — Hugh Graham sat in the room she had hallowed in his boyish days. He was now a gray-haired man, though still in the prime of life. Old thoughts had borne him company for many hours, and the chamber had gradually grown quite dark, when he was roused by a low knocking at the outer door.

He hastened down, and opening it saw by the light of a lamp which he had seized upon the way, a female figure crouching in the portal. It hurried swiftly past him and glided up the stairs. He looked for pursuers. There were none in sight. No, not one.

He was inclined to think it a vision of his own brain, when suddenly a vague suspicion of the truth flashed upon his mind. He barred the door, and hastened wildly back. Yes, there she was, — there, in the chamber he had quitted, — there in her old innocent, happy home, so changed that none but he could trace one gleam of what she had been, — there upon her knees,—with her hands clasped in agony and shame before her burning face.

"My God, my God!" she cried, "now strike me dead! Though I have brought death and shame and sorrow on this roof, O, let me die at home in mercy!"

There was no tear upon her face then, but she trembled and glanced round the chamber. Everything was in its old place. Her bed looked as if she had risen from it but that morning. The sight of these familiar objects, marking the dear remembrance in which she had been held, and the blight she had brought upon herself, was more than the woman’s better nature that had carried her there could bear. She wept and fell upon the ground.

A rumour was spread about, in a few days’ time, that the Bowyer’s cruel daughter had come home, and that Master Graham had given her lodging in his house. [Chapter II, "The Clock Case: First Night of the Giant Chronicles," pp. 20-21]

Commentary: Furniss's Melodramatic Choice

Furniss adopts a strategy very different from that of any of the other illustrators of the tragic story of the incipient but never realized romance of the devoted apprentice and Mistress Alice, the bowyer's errant daughter. Whereas other illustrators had used more than one illustration, and therefore could depict Master Graham and his antagonist, the young cavalier, as well as the bowyer himself, Furniss had to settle upon a single incident for realisation. Significantly, he chose the return of the abandoned Alice, the event which precipitates the final tragedy of the deaths of all three figures in the romantic triangle. The lithograph, however, cannot stand on its own, for readers can only properly interpret the shame and guilt of Mistress Alice once they have almost completed reading the tale.

Relevant Illustrations from Other Editions (1872-1910)

Left: Fred Barnard in the Household Edition leads off with an early scene from the story: At such times, . . . the Bowyer’s daughter would look timidly back at Hugh (1872). Centre: George Cattermole's headpiece alerts reader's to the outcome of Master Graham's devotion: Death of Master Graham (4 April 1840). Right: W. H. C. Groome devotes two full-page illustrations to this short story: the first establishes the characters in The bowyer's daughter would look timidly back; the second depicts Master Graham's confrontation with the cavalier: He promptly turned the point aside (1907).

Other Illustrated Editions of Master Humphrey's Clock

• George Cattermole's Original Serial Illustrations for Master Humphrey's Clock (April 1840)
• W. H. C. Groome's Illustrations for Master Humphrey's Clock (1907)
• Fred Barnard's Four Illustrations for Master Humphrey's Clock (1872) in the Household Edition (Vol. XX)

Related Materials

• Dickens's The Old Curiosity Shop (homepage)
• The Old Curiosity Shop Illustrated: A Team Effort by "The Clock Works"
• Illustrated Editions of The Old Curiosity Shop

Bibliography

Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. New York and Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1990.

Davis, Paul. "Master Humphrey's Clock." Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to his Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998, 238.

Dickens, Charles. Master Humphrey's Clock. Illustrated by George Cattermole and Hablot Knight Browne ('Phiz'). London: Chapman and Hall, 4 April 1840 — 4 December 1841.

_______. Master Humphrey's Clock. The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Reprinted Pieces, and Other Stories. With thirty illustrations by L. Fildes, E. G. Dalziel, and F. Barnard. The Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1872. Vol. XX. Pp. 253-306.

_______. Master Humphrey's Clock and Pictures from Italy. Collins Pocket Editions. Illustrated by W. H. C. Groome. London and Glasgow: Collins Clear-type Press, 1907. Pp. 1-168.

_______. Barnaby Rudge and Master Humphrey's Clock. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. 18 vols. Charles Dickens Library Edition. Volume VI. London: Educational Book, 1910.

Hammerton, J. A. The Dickens Picture Book: A Record of the Dickens Illustrators. Ch. XIV. "Master Humphrey's Clock." The Charles Dickens Library. London: Educational Book Co., 1910. Pp. 259-265.

Steig, Michael. Chapter 3, "From Caricature to Progress: Master Humphrey's Clock and Martin Chuzzlewit." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U. P., 1978. 51-85.

Stevens, Joan. "'Woodcuts Dropped into the Text': The Illustrations in The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge." Studies in Bibliography. 20 (1967): 113-34.

Vann, J. Don. "The Old Curiosity Shop in Master Humphrey's Clock, 25 April 1840-6 February 1841." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: MLA, 1985. 64-65.

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Created 30 August 2022