"The Wooden Midshipman on the Look-out" — twelfth serial illustration by "Phiz" for "Dombey and Son" (March 1847)

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The Wooden Midshipman on the Look-out

Phiz (Hablot K. Browne)

Steel-engraving

14 cm high by 11 cm wide

Dickens's Dombey and Son, facing p. 314.

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Image scan and accompanying text by Philip V. Allingham.

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Passage Illustrated: Florence arrives at her Home-away-from-Home to bid Walter Farewell

But that ancient mariner might have been excused his insensibility to the treasure as it rolled away. For, under his eye at the same moment, accurately within his range of observation, coming full into the sphere of his startled and intensely wide-awake look-out, were Florence and Susan Nipper: Florence looking up into his face half timidly, and receiving the whole shock of his wooden ogling!

More than this, they passed into the shop, and passed in at the parlour door before they were observed by anybody but the Midshipman. And Walter, having his back to the door, would have known nothing of their apparition even then, but for seeing his Uncle spring out of his own chair, and nearly tumble over another.

"Why, Uncle!" exclaimed Walter. "What’s the matter?"

Old Solomon replied, "Miss Dombey!"

"Is it possible?" cried Walter, looking round and starting up in his turn. "Here!"

Why, It was so possible and so actual, that, while the words were on his lips, Florence hurried past him; took Uncle Sol’s snuff-coloured lapels, one in each hand; kissed him on the cheek; and turning, gave her hand to Walter with a simple truth and earnestness that was her own, and no one else’s in the world! [Chapter XIX, "Walter Goes Away," 314-15]

Relevant Illustrations from Other Editions (1847-1877)

Left: W. H. C. Groome's derivative version of the same scene: Florence kissed him on the cheek (1900). Centre: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s dual study of the nautical characters: Sol Gills and Walter Gay (1867). Right: Fred Barnard's realisation of the same scene: "Took Uncle Sol's snuff-coloured lapels, one in each hand; kissed him on the cheek," etc. (1877).

Related Material, including Other Illustrated Editions of Dombey and Son

Dombey and Son (homepage)
O. C. Darley's Frontispiece in the New York edition (Vol. 1, 1862)
O. C. Darley's Frontispiece in the New York edition (Vol. 2, 1862)
O. C. Darley's Frontispiece in the New York edition (Vol. 3, 1862)
Sol Eytinge, Junior's 16 Diamond Edition Illustrations (1867)
Fred Barnard's 61 Illustrations for the Household Edition (1877)
Groome's illustrations of the Collins Pocket Edition (1900, rpt. 1934)
Kyd's five for Player's Cigarette Cards (1910)
Harry Furniss's 29 illustrations for the Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910)
Harold Copping's Captain Cuttle's Bright Idea, 1924.

Bibliography

Dickens, Charles. Dombey and Son. With illustrations by H. K. Browne. The illustrated library Edition. 2 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, c. 1880.

__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz"). 8 coloured plates. London and Edinburgh: Caxton and Ballantyne, Hanson, 1910.

__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz"). The Clarendon Edition, ed. Alan Horsman. Oxford: Clarendon, 1974.

__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr., and engraved by A. V. S. Anthony. 14 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. III.

__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. 61 wood-engravings. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1877. XV.

__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by W. H. C. Groome. London and Glasgow, 1900, rpt. 1934. 2 vols. in one.

_________. Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son: Wholesale, Retail, and for Exportation. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book Company, 1910. IX.

Hammerton, J. A. "Chapter 16: Dombey and Son."The Dickens Picture-Book. The Charles Dickens Library Edition.Illustrated by Harry Furniss. 18 vols. London: Educational Book Co., 1910. Vol. 17, 294-337.

Kitton, Frederic George. Dickens and His Illustrators: Cruikshank, Seymour, Buss, "Phiz," Cattermole, Leech, Doyle, Stanfield, Maclise, Tenniel, Frank Stone, Landseer, Palmer, Topham, Marcus Stone, and Luke Fildes. Amsterdam: S. Emmering, 1972. Re-print of the London (1899) edition.

Lester, Valerie Browne. Ch. 12, "Work, Work, Work." Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004, pp. 128-160.

Steig, Michael. Chapter 4. "Dombey and Son: Iconography of Social and Sexual Satire." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U. P., 1978. 86-112.

Vann, J. Don. Chapter 4."Dombey and Son, twenty parts in nineteen monthly installments, October 1846-April 1848." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: Modern Language Association, 1985. 67-68.

Created 8 August 2015

Last modified 28 January 2021