Passage Illustrated: Misadventure in a Munich Inn

Scarcely was the supper placed upon the table, when a tremendous tramping of horses along the street, and loud cracking of whips, announced a new arrival.

"Here they are," said I, as, springing up, I upset the soup, and nearly threw the roti into Antoine's face, as he was putting it before me.

Downstairs I rushed, through the hall, pushing aside waiters and overturning chambermaids in my course. The carriage was already at the door. Now for a surprise, thought I, as I worked through the crowd in the porch, and reached the door just as the steps were clattered down, and a gentleman began to descend, whom twenty expectant voices, now informed of his identity, welcomed as the new Chargé d'Affaires. [Chapter LII, "Inn at Munich," 324]

Commentary: A Waterfall of Soup

Lorrequer's emphasis in the humorous anecdote illustrated here is his encounter at the portal of the inn with the new Chargé d'Affaires, as he alights from his carriage. But Phiz shifts our attention to his chaotic progress as he flies down the stairs from his room. He has been interrupted in his soup course, served by his valet, Antoine, by the evening arrival of the carriage which the narrator concludes must be that transporting the great functionary. The illustration makes matters look far worse than the self-centred narrator's description, and includes in the background the enormous hotel manager's welcoming the Chargé as he steps down from the carriage. That the welcoming party contains four people may suggest why Lorrequer is in such a hurry: the others have brought themselves to the attention of the great man ahead of him. Phiz's use of stop-action brilliantly contrasts the complete stasis of the maid observing Lorrequer's progress from above (left) and the enormous, ornate soup tureen discharging its contents into the face of the elaborately-dressed head-waiter as four plates fly through the air above the fallen sub-waiter and scullery maid (identified by her pail and broom).

Thus, Phiz uses the frontispiece, produced towards the conclusion of the series, to set the keynote: the illustration invites the observant reader-viewer to adopt the critical, objective stance of the maid on the staircase, and to scrutinize the egocentric Lorrequer's impulsive actions and his effect on others rather than merely take him at his word, for he is, emphasizes Phiz, an unreliable narrator.

The Juxtaposition of Frontispiece and Title-page Vignette

Bibliography

Buchanan-Brown, John. Phiz! Illustrator of Dickens' World. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1978.

Downey, Edmund. Charles Lever, His Life in His Letters. Vol. I. 2 Vols. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1906. Internrt Archive. From a copy in the New York Public Library. Web. 13 April 2023. Vol. 1.

Lester, Valerie Browne Lester. Phiz! The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.

Lever, Charles. The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablot Knight Browne]. Dublin: William Curry, Jun. London: W. S. Orr, 1839.

Steig, Michael. Chapter Two: "The Beginnings of 'Phiz': Pickwick, Nickleby, and the Emergence from Caricature." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington: Indiana U. P., 1978. Pp. 24-85.

Steig, Michael. Chapter Seven: "Phiz the Illustrator: An Overview and a Summing Up." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington: Indiana U. P., 1978. Pp. 299-316.

Stevenson, Lionel. Chapter V, "Renegade from Physic, 1839-1841." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. London: Chapman and Hall, 1939. Pp. 73-93.

_______. "The Domestic Scene." The English Novel: A Panorama. Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin and Riverside, 1960.

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Created 13 April 2023