Monthly Wrapper
Phiz (Hablot K. Browne)
(June 1859) No. 1.
Full-page illustration for Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities.
Discussion of cover in relation to the novel
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> Phiz (Hablot K. Browne) —> A Tale of Two Cities]
Comment by Valerie Browne Lester (2004) on the Iconic Monthly Wrapper Design
Left: The Chapman & Hall advertiser for Lever's Davenport Dunn (1 July 1857). Centre: Phiz's exquisite waterfall engraving, Calypso's Grotto in the Lever serial (April 1858). Right: Phiz's characterisation of the Irish financier and swindler as a scarecrow, Engraved Title-Page (April 1859). Dickens apparently resented the fact that Phiz was working simultaneously for Lever, and felt Phiz's work for his 1859 monthly serial instalments inferior. [Click on images to enlarge them.]
Phiz's design for the cover of the monthly parts of A Tale of Two Cities was fairly well received. London with its icon, St. Paul's, lies at the top of the image; paris with its icon, Notre Dame, lies at the foot. London, with the Thames an its ships, speaks of prosperity; Paris, with its guillotine and maddened crowd, speaks of revolution. The rest of the illustrations for the monthly parts were denounced, the detractors criticizing Phiz for not moving with the times. They also claimed the techings were hastily executed, that Phiz was ill at ease with period costume, and that the images did not add fire to the fury of revolution. [163]
Related Materials
- A Tale of Two Cities (1859) — the last Dickens novel that "Phiz" Illustrated
- Compare to Phiz's 44 plates for Lever's Davenport Dunn (July 1857 through April 1859)
- Costume Notes on A Tale of Two Cities
- List of Plates
- A Note on the Wrapper Design, No. 2
- 25 Illustrations for Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities by Fred Barnard (from the household Edition, 1874)
Bibliography
Allingham, Philip V. "'Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities (1859) Illustrated: A Critical Reassessment of Hablot Knight Browne's Accompanying Plates." Dickens Studies. 33 (2003): 109-158.
Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities. Illustrated by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, November 1859.
Lester, Valerie Browne. Chapter 13, "1859." Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dicken. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004. Pp. 161-171.
Lever, Charles. Davenport Dunn: A Man of Our Time. Illustrated by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, July 1857-April 1859.
Sanders, Andrew. "Introduction" to Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Woodcock, George. "Introduction" to Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970.
Last modified 28 May 2023 Created 29 July 2011