Mrs. Dombey at Home by Hablot Knight Browne ("Phiz"), Chapter 36, "House-warming," Dickens's Dombey and Son (September 1847), facing p. 97 in Vol. 2 (1880). Mounted vertically. 4 x 6 ¼ inches (10 cm high by 15.8 cm wide), vignetted, in the twelfth monthly instalment (Chapters 35 through 38). The illustration is unusual in that it is Phiz's second attempt at a vertical orientation, which he realised would enable him to select for illustration group scenes that were cramped by the usual horizontal orientation in which he had worked in The Pickwick Papers ten years earlier. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Passage illustrated: The Dombeys Entertain
When Mrs. Dombey rose, it was a sight to see her lord, with stiff throat and erect head, hold the door open for the withdrawal of the ladies; and to see how she swept past him with his daughter on her arm.
Mr. Dombey was a grave sight, behind the decanters, in a state of dignity; and the East India Director was a forlorn sight near the unoccupied end of the table, in a state of solitude; and the Major was a military sight, relating stories of the Duke of York to six of the seven mild men (the ambitious one was utterly quenched); and the Bank Director was a lowly sight, making a plan of his little attempt at a pinery, with dessert-knives, for a group of admirers; and Cousin Feenix was a thoughtful sight, as he smoothed his long wristbands and stealthily adjusted his wig. But all these sights were of short duration, being speedily broken up by coffee, and the desertion of the room.
There was a throng in the state-rooms upstairs, increasing every minute; but still Mr. Dombey’s list of visitors appeared to have some native impossibility of amalgamation with Mrs. Dombey’s list, and no one could have doubted which was which. The single exception to this rule perhaps was Mr Carker, who now smiled among the company, and who, as he stood in the circle that was gathered about Mrs Dombey — watchful of her, of them, his chief, Cleopatra and the Major, Florence, and everything around — appeared at ease with both divisions of guests, and not marked as exclusively belonging to either. [Chapter XXXVI, "House-warming," Vol. II: 96-97]
The other four vertically oriented, full-width plates in Dombey and Son:
- Coming Home from Church (July 1847)
- A Chance Meeting (October 1847)
- On The Dark Road (March 1848)
- Another Wedding (April 1848)
Related Material, including Other Illustrated Editions of Dombey and Son
- Dombey and Son (homepage)
- Felix Octavius Carr Darley's Captain Cuttle . . . too his own [watch] down from the mantel-shelf for Volume 4 of Dombey and Son, Wholesale Retail & for Exportation, 1862
- Fred Barnard's 61 Illustrations for Dombey and Son, 1877
- Groome's illustrations of the Collins Pocket Edition of Dombey and Son (1900, rpt. 1934)
- Kyd's five Player's Cigarette Cards for Dombey and Son, 1910
- Harry Furniss's twenty-nine illustrations for Dombey and Son, Wholesale Retail & for Exportation (1910)
Scanned image 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.]
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.
_________. 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 17 August 2015
Last modified 5 January 2021