Major Bagstock is delighted to have that opportunity
Phiz (Hablot K. Browne)
14.2 cm. x 11.7 cm.
Dickens's Dombey and Son, Chapter 21, facing p. 345
Click on image to enlarge it
Image scan and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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Major Bagstock is delighted to have that opportunity
Phiz (Hablot K. Browne)
14.2 cm. x 11.7 cm.
Dickens's Dombey and Son, Chapter 21, facing p. 345
Click on image to enlarge it
Image scan and text by Philip V. Allingham.
[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one. ]
"My dearest Edith!" drawled the lady in the chair, "Major Bagstock!"
The Major no sooner heard the voice, than he relinquished Mr. Dombey’s arm, darted forward, took the hand of the lady in the chair and pressed it to his lips. With no less gallantry, the Major folded both his gloves upon his heart, and bowed low to the other lady. And now, the chair having stopped, the motive power became visible in the shape of a flushed page pushing behind, who seemed to have in part outgrown and in part out-pushed his strength, for when he stood upright he was tall, and wan, and thin, and his plight appeared the more forlorn from his having injured the shape of his hat, by butting at the carriage with his head to urge it forward, as is sometimes done by elephants in Oriental countries.
"Joe Bagstock," said the Major to both ladies, "is a proud and happy man for the rest of his life."
"You false creature!" said the old lady in the chair, insipidly. "Where do you come from? I can’t bear you."
"Then suffer old Joe to present a friend, Ma’am," said the Major, promptly, "as a reason for being tolerated. Mr. Dombey, Mrs. Skewton." The lady in the chair was gracious. "Mr. Dombey, Mrs. Granger." The lady with the parasol was faintly conscious of Mr. Dombey’s taking off his hat, and bowing low. "I am delighted, Sir," said the Major, "to have this opportunity." [Chapter XXI, "New Faces," 345]
As Angus Wilson notes, for perhaps the first time in his fiction, here Dickens introduces high society effortlessly, thereby extending the social range of the novel from the Toodles, the working class, right up to the upper classes represented by Mr. Dombey, Major Bagstock, Mrs. Skewton, and Mrs. Granger; "and, what is more, [Dickens] makes their representatives stand for that very conflict of values which is the novel's total concern" (208). For example, Phiz captures Bagstock's unique blend of toadyism, snobbery, pomposity, and showmanship precisely in his expression, his manner of dress, his posture, and his gesture. Under Phiz's gifted pen in this sketch, the retired Major appears at once deplorable and ridiculous and outrageous in his snobbery and his egotism: "In Mrs. Skewton and Major Bagstock, Dickens produced the funniest, the most violent and the most frightening attack upon the worldly values embodied in Regency manners, in the whole work" (208).
Left: Clayton J. Clarke's Player's Cigarette Card No. 7 watercolour study: Major Bagstock (1910). Centre: Harry Furniss's portrait of the opinionated old standard-bearer of Empire, "Joey B." (1910). Right: Barnard's realisation of Dombey's initiating a social relationship with Edith Granger: "Withers the Wan, at this period, handing round the tea, Mr. Dombey again addressed himself to Edith." (1877).
Right: Fred Barnard's Household Edition illustration of the Major's encountering Dombey in the street: "Take advice from plain old Joe, and never educate that sort of people, sir." (1877). Centre: Furniss's version of the same encounter, Mr. Dombey meets Edith (1910). Right: Sol Eytinge, Junior's study of the bluff retired military man and his colonial servant: Major Bagstock and The Native (1867).
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.
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. 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.
Wilson, Angus. Chapter 4, "Away From It All and Back Again 1840-50." The World of Charles Dickens. New York: Viking, 1970. 145-216.
Created 8 August 2015
Last modified 31 January 2021