Frank Stone's "Milly and the Old Man" -- Plate 5 from The Haunted Man

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Milly and the Old Man

Frank Stone

1848

Plate 5 from Dickens's The Haunted Man (p. 19)

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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Dickens's initial response to this plate by Stone was delight, with the reservation that the artist give her a matronly cap because of the author's intending to introduce the subject of her dead child. This is the first of three plates by Dickens's Friend, Frank Stone, whom he met at the Shakespeare Club in 1838-9. In place of regulars Maclise and Doyle, Dickens enlisted Stone and Tenniel. The moment that Stone has realised is one which Dickens had probably suggested to him in one of their face-to-face meetings in mid-October.

The moment realised is Milly's decorating the college with her father-in-law's assistance: “Mrs. William took small branches, which she noiselessly trimmed with her scissors, and decorated the room with, while her aged father-in-law looked on much interested in the ceremony” (255, immediately ahead of the plate). We have moved from superstition, allegory, and psychomachia through reverie and tempestuous waves to a tranquil Pre-Raphaelite domestic scene. The antique chair and small oil-painting admirably suggest the interior of the old college. We note that considerably more text shares the page with this plate, balancing the textual and pictorial narratives.

Created 19 October 2004

Last modified 29 December 2019