“Lizzie Hexam's Vigil” by Harry Furniss — seventh illustration for "Our Mutual Friend" (1910)

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Lizzie Hexam's Vigil

Harry Furniss

1910

13.9 cm x 8.8 cm, or 5 ½ by 3 ½ inches, vignetted

Dickens's Our Mutual Friend, The Charles Dickens Library Edition, for Book 1, Chapter XIII, “Tracking the Bird of Prey,” facing XV, 176.

The lonely girl with dark hair sat on the ground, looking at the brazier, with her face leaning on her hand. There was a kind of film or flicker on her face, as if from the fitful firelight; but in reality she was weeping. — Our Mutual, p. 169.

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Scanned images and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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Passage Illustrated: In Sharp Contrast to the Previous Society Illustration — Lizzie

On the shelving bank of the river, among the slimy stones of a causeway — not the special causeway of the Six Jolly Fellowships, which had a landing-place of its own, but another, a little removed, and very near to the old windmill which was the denounced man’s dwelling-place — were a few boats; some, moored and already beginning to float; others, hauled up above the reach of the tide. Under one of these latter, Eugene’s companion disappeared. And when Eugene had observed its position with reference to the other boats, and had made sure that he could not miss it, he turned his eyes upon the building where, as he had been told, the lonely girl with the dark hair sat by the fire.

He could see the light of the fire shining through the window. Perhaps it drew him on to look in. Perhaps he had come out with the express intention. That part of the bank having rank grass growing on it, there was no difficulty in getting close, without any noise of footsteps: it was but to scramble up a ragged face of pretty hard mud some three or four feet high and come upon the grass and to the window. He came to the window by that means.

She had no other light than the light of the fire. The unkindled lamp stood on the table. She sat on the ground, looking at the brazier, with her face leaning on her hand. There was a kind of film or flicker on her face, which at first he took to be the fitful firelight; but, on a second look, he saw that she was weeping. A sad and solitary spectacle, as shown him by the rising and the falling of the fire. [Book One, “The Cup and the Lip”; Chapter XIII, “Tracking the Bird of Prey,” 169]

Commentary: Furniss's Re-thinking of Waiting for Father

Furniss, reacting perhaps to Mahoney's suspenseful handling of the scene in the 1875 Household Edition volume and Marcus Stone's atmospheric treatment of Lizzie in the 1864 serial, moves in for the closeup. However, we have no sense here of the context of the brooding young woman: we cannot even see the brazier in Gaffer's hovel, let alone the attorney, observing the scene inside the hovel. Furniss expects readers to turn back in Dickens's chapter if they do not recall Lizzie's situation. Such reference immediately reveals that Lizzie, daughter of the suspected murderer of young John Harmon, is under surveillance. Furniss's treatment of the brooding young woman is both far more realistic and psychological, and far less caricatural than the Marcus Stone original. Clearly the artist intends the reader to identify with the poor waterman's daughter.

Comparable Illustrations in the Original, Diamond, and Household Editions (1864-1875)

Left: Marcus Stone's August 1864 atmospheric study of the pensive daughter of Gaffer Hexam: Waiting for Father. (Part 4). Centre: James Mahoney presents the watcher rather than the watched in It was a little window of but four pieces of glass, and was not curtained; he chose it because the larger window near it was (1875). Right: Sol Eytinge, Junior's study of the daughter and her father on the shores of the Thames: The Bird of Prey (1867). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

Related Materials

Illustrations by Marcus Stone (40 plates from the Chapman and Hall edition of May 1864 through November 1865)
Frontispieces by Octavius Carr Darley (4 photogravures from the Hurd and Houghton Household Edition of 1866)
Illustrations by Sol Eytinge, Jr. (16 plates from the Ticknor and Fields' Diamond Edition of 1867)
James Mahoney (58 plates from the Chapman and Hall Household Edition of 1875)
Harry Furniss (28 lithographs from the Charles Dickens Library Edition, Vol. XV, 1910)
Clayton J. Clarke (two studies from his designs for the Player's Cigarette Cards, 1910)

Bibliography

Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. Oxford and New York: Oxford U. P., 1988.

The Characters of Charles Dickens Pourtrayed in a Series of Original Water Colour Sketches by “Kyd.” London, Paris, and New York: Raphael Tuck & Sons, 1898[?].

Cordery, Gareth, and Joseph S. Meisel, eds. The Humours of Parliament: Harry Furniss's View of Late-Victorian Culture. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2014. [Review by Françoise Baillet]

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. Our Mutual Friend. Illustrated by Marcus Stone [40 composite wood-block engravings]. The Authentic Edition of the Works of Charles Dickens. 21 vols. London: Chapman and Hall; New York: Charles Scribners' Sons, 1901 [based on the original nineteen-month serial and the two-volume edition of 1865]. Vol. XIV.

Dickens, Charles. Our Mutual Friend. Frontispieces by Felix Octavius Carr Darley and Sir John Gilbert. The Household Edition. 55 vols. New York: Sheldon & Co., 1863. 4 vols.

Dickens, Charles. Our Mutual Friend. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. 14 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. Vol. VIII.

Dickens, Charles. Our Mutual Friend. Illustrated by James Mahoney. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1875. Volume IX.

Dickens, Charles. Our Mutual Friend. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. XV.

Hammerton, J. A. "Chapter 21: The Other Novels." The Dickens Picture-Book. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. 18 vols. London: Educational Book Co., 1910. Vol. XVII. 441-442.

Vann, J. Don. "Our Mutual Friend, twenty parts in nineteen monthly instalments, May 1864—November 1865." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: The Modern Language Association, 1985. 74.

Created 1 August 2025