"A Rubber at Miss Havisham's" — sixth wood-engraving by Marcus Stone (1862)

A Rubber at Miss Havisham's

Marcus Stone

Wood engraving

5 ¼ by 3 ½ inches (13.5 cm by 9.1 cm)

We afterwards went up to Miss Havisham's room, and we four played at whist. In the interval Miss Havisham, in a fantastic way, had put some of the most beautiful jewels from her dressing-table into Estella's hair, and about her bosom and arms; and I saw even my guardian look at her from under his thick eyebrows, and raise them a little, when her loveliness was before him.

Dickens's Great Expectations, Garnett edition, facing p. 280.

[Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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Passage Illustrated: Jaggers' and Miss Havisham's Gamesmanship Underscored

Of the manner and extent to which he took our trumps into custody, and came out with mean little cards at the ends of hands, before which the glory of our Kings and Queens was utterly abased, I say nothing; nor, of the feeling that I had, respecting his looking upon us personally in the light of three very obvious and poor riddles that he had found out long ago. What I suffered from, was the incompatibility between his cold presence and my feelings towards Estella. It was not that I knew I could never bear to speak to him about her, that I knew I could never bear to hear him creak his boots at her, that I knew I could never bear to see him wash his hands of her; it was, that my admiration should be within a foot or two of him,—it was, that my feelings should be in the same place with him, — that, was the agonizing circumstance.

We played until nine o’clock, and then it was arranged that when Estella came to London I should be forewarned of her coming and should meet her at the coach; and then I took leave of her, and touched her and left her. [Chapter XXIX, 280]

Commentary

Not all of Marcus Stone's eight illustrations for the 1862 Library Edition are of the quality of the frontispiece, Pip Waits on Miss Havisham, although certainly some exceed the level of the "banal" (Patten, 292). Such is not the case with the whist scene, whose virtue is that it offers a clear depiction of Jaggers — the only one in Stone's sequence.

Other Artists’ Illustrations for Dickens's Great Expectations

Edward Ardizzone (2 plates selected)
H. M. Brock (8 lithographs)
J. Clayton Clarke ("Kyd") (2 lithographs from watercolours)
Felix O. C. Darley (2 plates)
Sol Eytinge, Jr. (8 wood engravings)
John McLenan (40 wood engravings)
F. A. Fraser in the Household Edition (1876) (30 wood-engravings)
Frederic W. Pailthorpe (21 lithographs)
Harry Furniss (28 plates)
Charles Green (10 lithographs)

Bibliography

Allingham, Philip V. "The Illustrations for Great Expectations in Harper's Weekly (1860-61) and in the Illustrated Library Edition (1862) — 'Reading by the Light of Illustration'." Dickens Studies Annual, Vol. 40 (2009): 113-169.

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

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

Dickens, Charles. The Letters of Charles Dickens. Ed. Madeline House, Graham Storey, and Kathleen Tillotson. Oxford: Clarendon, 1965. Vol. 9 (1859-1861).

Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. All the Year Round. Vols. IV and V. 1 December 1860 through 3 August 1861.

Dickens, Charles. ("Boz."). Great Expectations. With thirty-four illustrations from original designs by John McLenan. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson (by agreement with Harper & Bros., New York), 1861.

Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. Il. Marcus Stone. The Illustrated Library Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1862. Rpt. in The Nonesuch Dickens, Great Expectations and Hard Times. London: Nonesuch, 1937; Overlook and Worth Presses, 2005.

Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations. Il. Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. 16 vols. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867.

Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. Volume 6 of the Household Edition. Il. F. A. Fraser. London: Chapman and Hall, 1876.

Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. The Gadshill Edition. Il. Charles Green. London: Chapman and Hall, 1897-1908.

Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. "With 28 Original Plates by Harry Furniss." Volume 14 of the Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book Co., 1910.

McLenan, John, il. Charles Dickens's Great Expectations [the First American Edition]. Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization, Vols. IV: 740 through V: 495 (24 November 1860-3 August 1861). Rpt. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson, 1861.

Rosenberg, Edgar (ed.). "Launching Great Expectations." Charles Dickens's Great Expectations. New York: W. W. Norton, 1999. Pp. 389-423.

Stein, Robert A. "Dickens and Illustration." The Cambridge Companion to Charles Dickens. Ed. John O. Jordan. Cambridge: Cambridge U. P., 2001. 167-188.

Watt, Alan S. "Why Wasn't Great Expectations Illustrated?" The Dickens Magazine Series 1, Issue 2. Haslemere, England: Euromed Communications, 2001: 8-9.

Waugh, Arthur. "Charles Dickens and His Illustrators." Retrospectus and Prospectus: The Nonesuch Dickens. London: Bloomsbury, 1937, rpt. 2003. Pp. 6-52.

Created 10 July 2015

Updated 1 November 2021