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"Did you want a coffin, Sir?"
Frederic W. Pailthorpe
1886
9 cm high by 7.8 cm wide (3 ½ inches by 3 inches)
Dickens's Oliver Twist
[Click on image to enlarge it. See below for passage illustrated, commentary and comparisons with other illustrators' work; mouse over the text for links.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
For a second or two, Oliver glanced up the street, and down the street, and over the way: impressed with the belief that the unknown, who had addressed him through the key-hole, had walked a few paces off, to warm himself; for nobody did he see but a big charity-boy, sitting on a post in front of the house, eating a slice of bread and butter: which he cut into wedges, the size of his mouth, with a clasp-knife, and then consumed with great dexterity.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Oliver at length: seeing that no other visitor made his appearance; “did you knock?”
“I kicked,” replied the charity-boy.
“Did you want a coffin, sir?” inquired Oliver, innocently. [Chapter V, "Oliver Mingles with New Associates. Going to a Funeral for the First Time, He Forms an Unfavourable Notion of his Master’s Business," pp. 22-23 in the 1846 edition]
Pailthorpe passes over Oliver's nearly being apprenticed to a chimney-sweep, and shows Oliver just familiarizing himself with his new placement, the local undertaker's parlour. Pailthorpe here is still in his grangerising phase, illustrating those incidents that his gifted predecessor, George Cruikshank, had not touched upon in the opening chapters. Indeed, whereas Cruikshank had realised Oliver's indignation, resulting in his assault upon the hectoring Noah, Pailthorpe has elected to complement Cruikshank's Oliver plucks up a spirit (April 1837) in the initial instalment in Bentley's Miscellany. He does so with "before" and "after" scenes: here, Noah kicks at the door, expecting to be let in.
Left: Harry Furniss's Charles Dickens Library Edition illustration (1910) Bumble surprises Noah and Charlotte. Centre: James Mahoney's Household Edition illustration of Oliver's thrashing the bully at Sowerberry's: Oliver rather astonishes Noah/span> (1871). Right: Clayton J. Clarke's study of an ungainly, ugly adolescent: Noah Claypole (1910). [Click on images to enlarge them.]
Left: George Cruikshank's original version of Oliver plucks up a spirit. Centre: Harry Furniss's Charles Dickens Library Edition illustration (1910) Oliver Aroused. Right: Sol Eytinge, Junior's Noah and Charlotte in the Diamond Edition (1867). [Click on images to enlarge them.]
Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. New York and Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1990.
Cohen, Jane Rabb. "George Cruikshank." Charles Dickens and His Original Illustrators. Columbus: Ohio State U. P., 1980. Pp. 15-38.
Darley, Felix Octavius Carr. Character Sketches from Dickens. Philadelphia: Porter and Coates, 1888.
Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998.
Dickens, Charles. The Adventures of Oliver Twist. Illustrated by George Cruikshank. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1838; Chapman and Hall, 1846.
_______. The Letters of Charles Dickens. Ed. Graham Storey, Kathleen Tillotson, and Angus Eassone. The Pilgrim Edition. Oxford: Clarendon, 1965. Vol. 1 (1820-1839).
_______. Oliver Twist. Works of Charles Dickens. Household Edition. 55 vols. Il. F. O. C. Darley and John Gilbert. New York: Sheldon and Co., 1865.
_______. Oliver Twist. Works of Charles Dickens. Diamond Edition. 14 vols. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867. Vol. XI.
_______. The Adventures of Oliver Twist. Works of Charles Dickens. Household Edition. 22 vols. Illustrated by James Mahoney. London: Chapman and Hall, 1871. Vol. I.
_______. Oliver Twist. Works of Charles Dickens. Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. London: Educational Book Company, 1910. Vol. III.
_______. Oliver Twist. Works of Charles Dickens. The Waverley Edition of the Works of Charles Dickens. Illustrated by Charles Pears. London: Waverley, 1912.
Grego, Joseph (intro). Cruikshank's Water Colours. [27 Oliver Twist illustrations, including the wrapper and the 13-vignette title-page produced for F. W. Cosens; 20 plates for William Harrison Ainsworth's The Miser's Daughter: A Tale of the Year 1774; 20 plates plus the proofcover the work for W. H. Maxwell's History of the Irish Rebellion in 1798 and Emmetts Insurrection in 1803]. London: A & C Black, 1903. OT = pp. 1-106]. Book in the Rare Book Collection of the University of Toronto.
Pailthorpe, Frederic W. (Illustrator). Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist. London: Robson & Kerslake, 1886. Set No. 118 (coloured) of 200 sets of proof impressions.
Created 11 February 2015 Last modified 21 November 2021