The Great Winglebury Duel
Phiz (Hablot K. Browne)
1858
Wood-engraving
7.3 by 5.4 cm, vignetted
"The Great Winglebury Duel" — the eighth chapter in "Tales," by Charles Dickens in Sketches by Boz, Library Edition, title-page vignette.
[Click on image to enlarge it and mouse over text for links.]
Scanned image by Prof. Paul Schlicke, University of Aberdeen, and text by Philip V. Allingham.
"You'd better be quiet, young feller," remarked the boots, going through a threatening piece of pantomime with the stick.
"Or mad!" said Mr. Trott, rather alarmed. "Leave the room!" shouted Trott, ringing the bell violently: for he began to be alarmed on a new score.
"Leave that 'ere bell alone, you wretched loo-nattic!" said the boots, suddenly forcing the unfortunate Trott back into his chair, and brandishing the stick aloft. "Be quiet, you miserable object, and don't let everybody know there's a madman in the house."
"He is a madman! He is a madman!" exclaimed the terrified Mr. Trott, gazing on the one eye of the red-headed boots with a look of abject horror.
"Madman!" replied the boots — "dam'me, I think he is a madman with a vengeance! Listen to me, you unfort'nate. Ah! would you?" — [a slight tap on the head with the large stick, as Mr. Trott made another move towards the bell-handle] "I caught you there! did I?"
"Spare my life!" exclaimed Trott, raising his hands imploringly.
"I don't want your life," replied the boots, disdainfully, "though I think it 'ud be a charity if somebody took it."
"No, no, it wouldn't," interrupted poor Mr. Trott, hurriedly, "no, no, it wouldn’t! I — I —'d rather keep it!"
"O werry well," said the boots: "that's a mere matter of taste — ev'ry one to his liking. Hows'ever, all I've got to say is this here: You sit quietly down in that chair, and I'll sit hoppersite you here, and if you keep quiet and don't stir, I won't damage you; but, if you move hand or foot till half-past twelve o'clock, I shall alter the expression of your countenance so completely, that the next time you look in the glass you’ll ask vether you're gone out of town, and ven you're likely to come back again. So sit down."
"I will — I will," responded the victim of mistakes; and down sat Mr. Trott and down sat the boots too, exactly opposite him, with the stick ready for immediate action in case of emergency.
Long and dreary were the hours that followed. The bell of Great Winglebury church had just struck ten, and two hours and a half would probably elapse before succour arrived. — "Tales," Chapter 8, "The Great Winglebury Duel," p. 315.
The last four tales seem indicative of more than simply their author's growing fictional expertise. In each of these last pieces, the subject of some form of mental disorder recurs. The presence of this motif is made all the more remarkable by its absence, in large part, from the earlier tales. In "The Great Winglebury Duel" and "The Tuggses at Ramsgate," the respective topics of madness and extreme nervous excitability are treated farcically. The plot of the former tale deals with a case of mistaken identity in which a cowardly young man, attempting to escape from a duel, is assumed to be a young nobleman whose middle-aged fiancée has instructed him to feign madness so that they may elope without detection. As an illustration by Cruikshank emphasizes, the high point of the story is an episode at the inn at Winglebury in which the supposed "wretched loo-nattic" is guarded by a one-eyed boots, brandishing a large stick, whose behaviour seems so erratic to "the victim of mistakes" that the latter assumes that the boots, in turn, is mad. — Deborah A. Thomas "Imaginative Overindulgence," p. 15.
The ominous shadow invests the scene with a mysterious menace that a thorough reading of the text does not support as Alexander Trott's being apprehended as a madman is the result of mistaken identity. Above the pair looms a 19th c. biblical commonplace for tribulation and the testing of one's mettle, Daniel in the Lions' Den (alluding to "The Book of Daniel," Chapter 6, and possibly to Rembrandt's 1652 sketch, and Rubens' 1615 canvas), a subtle embedded comment by Phiz upon the harrowing nature of the experience for each of the men. The one-eyed boots, barring Trott's exit as he thoughtfully studies the deranged young "nobleman," supposes that the delusional aristocrat could prove dangerous, if provoked, while Trott, even as he tries to placate his captor, is convinced that this hotel functionary is simply a lunatic who means him bodily harm. Each regards himself as put upon, and Trott regards himself as an entirely blameless victim of injustice, and certainly not meriting the treatment he is receiving at the inn at Winglebury, which is proving to be as oppressive as Babylon for Daniel, a proto-Christ, in the famous Old Testament incident. Suggesting that Alexander Trott is typical of the young men in Dickens's London sketches and tales, Thea Holme has placed a likeness of the callow youth nervously seated at the centre of the title-page for the Oxford Illustrated Edition.
Dominated by the looming shadow, it seems to me Phiz at his best. — personal correspondence from Paul Schlicke.
Left: George Cruikshank's original depiction of the nervous Trott and the menacing, one-eyed boots keeping the hotel guest a virtual prisoner, in The Winglebury Duel (1836). Centre: Fred Barnard's depiction of the enraged boots and the terrified Alexander Trott, "Leave that 'ere bell alone, you wretched loo-nattic!" said the boots, suddenly forcing the unfortunate Trott back into his chair, and brandishing the stick aloft. Right: Harry Furniss's depiction of the same incident, likely derivative, The Great Winglebury Duel (1910). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Above: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s duel character study of the one-eyed boots and the terrified young traveller at the Winglebury Arms, room no. 19, The Great Winglebury Duel. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
The Library Edition, aimed at a more affluent readership than the first uniform (Cheap) edition of the 1850s, is dedicated to John Forster since it was he who suggested to Bradbury and Evans and CD that a better quality, authoritative complete edition of his works be made available for "the better class of readers who would buy them for well-furnished bookshelves" (CD to Evans 6 September 1857). Issued by Chapman and Hall monthly between January 1858 at 6s. per volume, with longer novels such as Martin Chuzzlewit occupying two volumes, the handsomely-bound edition was in a more readable format than the double-columned Cheap Edition, although it was unillustrated, except for elegant title-page vignettes by Phiz. Because some of the copyrights were held by Bradbury and Evans, the Library Edition title-pages bear the imprints of both firms. Reacting to slow sales, Chapman and Hall, now acting as sole publisher, expanded the concept, reissuing the volumes in 1861-62 with the original illustrations, and even commissioning illustrations for books such as Hard Times originally published without any illustration. The Illustrated Library Edition, although necessarily a little more expensive, at 7s. 6d. per compact volume, sold well. Thus, Dickens once again proved himself adept at "working the copyrights," issuing the new, illustrated volumes simultaneously with the unillustrated Cheap Edition, still being published.
This best edition of my books is, as of right, inscribed to my dear friend John Forster, Biographer of Oliver Goldsmith. In grateful remembrance of the many patient hours he has devoted to the corrections of proof-sheets of the original editions: and in affectionate acknowledgement of his counsel, sympathy and faithful friendship, during my whole literary life. — CD's dedication to The Library edition, Tavistock House, December 1857, cited in Slater, 446.
Left: George Cruikshank's frontispiece for the Chapman & Hall Cheap Edition (1840), showing the chimney scene from "A Passage in the Life of Watkins Tottle," The Courtship of Gabriel Parsons in Chapter 8 of "Tales." Left of centre: Cruikshank's 1839 frontispiece, which faces the half-title, The Election for Beadle. Right of centre: Cruikshank's depiction of Cruikshank and Dickens as balloonists, Vignette Title (1839). Right: Furniss's elaborate frontispiece, which references both the first and third sketches in "Our Parish," The Election of Beadle (1910). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Above: Fred Barnard's wood-engraving of a scene from "Hackney Coaches," It was a wedding party and it emerged from one of the inferior streets from volume 13 of THe Household Edition (1876). [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
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Dickens, Charles. "The Great Winglebury Duel," Chapter 8 in "Tales," Sketches by Boz. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. The Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1876. Pp. 194-202.
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Dickens, Charles. Sketches by Boz. Frontispiece by 'Phiz" (Hablot Knight Browne). The Library Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1858.
Dickens, Charles. Sketches by Boz Illustrative of Every-day Life and Every-Day People. Ed. Thea Holme. Illustrated by George Cruikshank and 'Phiz'. The Oxford Illustrated Dickens. Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1957; rpt., 1987.
Hammerton, J. A. The Dickens Picture-Book: A Record of the Dickens Illustrators. The Charles Dickens Library Edition, vol. 17. London: Educational Book, 1910.
Hawksley, Lucinda Dickens. Chapter 3, "Sketches by Boz." Dickens Bicentenary 1812-2012: Charles Dickens. San Rafael, California: Insight, 2011. Pp. 12-15.
Schlicke, Paul. "Sketches by Boz." Oxford Reader's Companion to Dickens. Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1999. Pp. 530-535.
Slater, Michael. Charles Dickens: A Life Defined by Writing. New Haven and London: Yale U. P., 2009.
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Last modified 6 June 2017
