Harry Furniss's eighteen-volume edition of The Charles Dickens Library (London: Educational Book Company, 1910) contains some 500 special plates (part of the total of 1200 illustrations) and two volumes of commentary. Volume 17, by J. A. Hammerton, is entitled The Dickens Picture Book: A Record of the Dickens Illustrators. The fifth volume, entitled The Old Curiosity Shop, represents Dickens's third novel, run serially in his own weekly periodical Master Humphrey's Clock (4 April 1840 through 4 December 1841). Furniss illustrated the uncollected pieces separately as Master Humphrey's Clock for volume 6 of the Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910).

The final volume of the 1910 Charles Dickens Library Edition is The Dickens Companion: A Book of Anecdote and Reference. For all thirty-two illustrations in Volume V, The Old Curiosity Shop, the series editor, J. A. Hammerton, has included both succinct captions and extended quotations to demonstrate the textual moment realised in each; moreover, each quotation refers to a specific page number, thereby enabling the reader to find the passage illustrated. Although each page is 12.2 by 18.4 cm (4.75 by 7.25 inches) and the caption below each in upper-case, and below that occurs a multi-line quotation in upper and lower case, each plate is effectively 14.3 cm by 9.2 cm (5.5 inches by 3.25 inches), the vertically-mounted illustrations usually being framed, and the horizontally-mounted illustrations being vignetted. The volume also contains the short novel Hard Times, but Furniss provided only two illustrations to accompany it: Gradgrind (frontispiece) and Characters from Dickens (engraved title). Of the five chief nineteenth-century illustrated editions that preceded Furniss's 32-illustration volume in 1912, only three had long programs exclusively produced by a single artist: Sol Eytinge, Jr. (1867), Thomas Worth (1876), and Charles Green (1876).

Thirty-two Illustrations for The Old Curiosity Shop (1910)

Numbers refer to chapters in Roman and pages in Arabic.

  1. Nell and Her Grandfather Frontispiece
  2. The Characters in the Story Engraved Title-page
  3. Kit Chapter I: facing 8
  4. Fred Trent visits his Grandfather Chapter III: facing 24
  5. Quilp Chapter IV: facing 33
  6. Quilp watches Nell comforting her Grandfather Chapter X: facing 64
  7. Quilp in Little Nell's "Bower" Chapter XI: facing 80
  8. Mr. and Mrs. Garland have trouble with Whisker Chapter XIV: facing 97
  9. The Wanderers Chapter XV: facing 112
  10. Codlin and Short in the Churchyard Chapter XVII: facing 128
  11. The new Visitors to the Jolly Sandboys Chapter XVIII: facing 137
  12. Kit and Barbara at Abel Cottage, Finchley Chapter XXII: facing 161
  13. The Schoolmaster Chapter XXIV: facing 176
  14. Mrs. Jarley takes Tea on her Caravan Chapter XXII: facing 192
  15. Mrs. Jarley's Waxworks Chapter XXVIII: facing 208
  16. A Card Game at the Valiant Soldier Chapter XXXI: facing 225
  17. Mrs. Jarley exhorts the Public to be in Time Chapter XXXII: facing 241
  18. Quilp looks into the Attorney's Parlour Chapter XXXIII: facing 256
  19. Dick Swiveller hears the Marchioness say "No" Chapter XXXVI: facing 272
  20. Night on the Barge Chapter XLIII: facing 321
  21. The Marchioness Chapter XLVIII: facing 352
  22. Quilp on his Hammock Chapter L: facing 368
  23. Little Nell in the Old Church Chapter LIII: facing 385
  24. The Sexton shows Little Nell the Old Well Chapter LV: facing 416
  25. Dick Swiveller and the Marchioness Chapter LVII: facing 424
  26. "Away with Melancholy" Chapter LVIII: facing 432
  27. Quilp vents his Spite on the Figure Head Chapter LXII: facing 449
  28. The Fallen Brass Chapter LXVI: facing 480
  29. Sally Brass under Examination Chapter LXVI: facing 489
  30. The Last of Quilp Chapter LXVII: facing 504
  31. Blushing little Barbara Chapter LXVIII: facing 513
  32. The Death of Little Nell Chapter LXXI: facing 544.

Principal Illustrated Editions of the Novel prior to Furniss's

Related Materials

Scanned images, 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.] Click on the image to enlarge it.

Bibliography

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

Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998.

Dickens, Charles. The Old Curiosity Shop in Master Humphrey's Clock. Illustrated by Phiz, George Cattermole, Samuel Williams, and Daniel Maclise. 3 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1840.

_______. The Old Curiosity Shop. Frontispieces by Felix Octavius Carr Darley and Sir John Gilbert. The Household Edition. 55 vols. New York: Sheldon & Co., 1863. 4 vols.

_______. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. 14 vols.

_______. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by Thomas Worth. The Household Edition. New York: Haper & Bros., 1872.

_______. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by Charles Green. The Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1876.

vThe Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book, 1910. Volume V.

_______. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by William H. C. Groome. The Collins' Clear-Type Edition. Glasgow & London: Collins, 1900.

Hammerton, J. A. The Dickens Picture-Book. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book, 1910.

Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.

Schlicke, Paul, ed. The Oxford Reader's Companion to Dickens. Oxford and New York: Oxford U. P., 1999.

Steig, Michael. "Phiz's Marchioness." Dickens Studies. 2, 3: (September 1966): 141-46.

_______. Chapter 3. "From Caricature to Progress: Master Humphrey's Clock to Martin Chuzzlewit." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U. P., 1978. 53-85.

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

Tan, Jack. "Charles Dickens’s Idealized Portraits: Rewriting the child in Oliver Twist and The Old Curiosity Shop." The Looking Glass: New Perspectives on Children's Literature 18, 1 (September 2015).

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 1 May 2020

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