"Oh! Why can't you leave a poor cove alone, Misses Brown?" — thirty-seventh illustration by W. L. Sheppard for Dickens's "Dombey and Son" (American Household E dition, 1873)

"Oh! Why can't you leave a poor cove alone, Misses Brown?" by W. L. Sheppard. Thirty-seventh illustration for Dickens's Dombey and Son in the American Household Edition (1873), Chapter XLV, "The Trusty Agent," p. 259. Page 259's Heading: "The Altered Grinder Recognized." 9.3 x 13.6 cm (3 ¾ by 5 ⅜ inches) framed. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Passage Illustrated: Mrs. Brown terrifies Rob the Grinder in his new calling

But the old woman, for whom the spectacle of Rob the Grinder returning down the street, leading the riderless horse, appeared to have some extraneous interest that it did not possess in itself, surveyed that young man with the utmost earnestness; and seeming to have whatever doubts she entertained, resolved as he drew nearer, glanced at her daughter with brightened eyes and with her finger on her lip, and emerging from the gateway at the moment of his passing, touched him on the shoulder.

“Why, where’s my sprightly Rob been, all this time!” she said, as he turned round.

The sprightly Rob, whose sprightliness was very much diminished by the salutation, looked exceedingly dismayed, and said, with the water rising in his eyes:

“Oh! why can’t you leave a poor cove alone, Misses Brown, when he’s getting an honest livelihood and conducting himself respectable? What do you come and deprive a cove of his character for, by talking to him in the streets, when he’s taking his master’s horse to a honest stable — a horse you’d go and sell for cats’ and dogs’ meat if you had your way! Why, I thought,” said the Grinder, producing his concluding remark as if it were the climax of all his injuries, “that you was dead long ago!”

“This is the way,” cried the old woman, appealing to her daughter, “that he talks to me, who knew him weeks and months together, my deary, and have stood his friend many and many a time among the pigeon-fancying tramps and bird-catchers.” [Chapter XLVI, "Recognizant and Reflective," 258]

Commentary: Enlisting the Aid of Rob the Grinder as their Spy upon Carker

From being a cadger and raiser of pigeons Rob the Grinder has risen in the world since Good Mrs. Brown last saw him: he is now the personal valet and confidant of "Jem Carker," rapidly rising in reputation and net worth in the City. From the cover an archway in a less than reputable part of London (albeit, apparently, not far from the offices of Dombey and Son) she and her comely daughter watch as Rob the Grinder now leads his master's horse back and forth in the lane, awaiting his employer. When the witch-like crone accosts him, Rob immediately suspects that she has designs upon the horse. In the background, upper right, Sheppard has inserted a prostitute, plying her trade, but the composition is dominated by the three foregrounded figures and the beautifully executed horse. Since Alice Marwood has already sworn to have her revenge on James Carker, it seems likely that she and her mother intend to coerce Rob into becoming their confidential agent and spy in Carker's household. Rob's obvious terror of the crone and her easy approach in the street suggests that she will get her way. The composition suggests that Sheppard had used the original serial illustration as his model, particularly in his placement and handling of the figure of Alice. Like Phiz, Sheppard positions the hidden observer, the angry and vengeful Alice Marwood, in a darkened gateway, just out of Rob the Grinder's vision. And, like Phiz, Sheppard uses "the highlights and the aura of light about her head [to] make her the dominant figure" (Steig 100) rather than her malevolent mother. Alice does not engage with Rob, but watches him closely from hiding.

Left: Phiz's original serial illustration of the same incident: Abstraction and Recognition (December 1847). Centre: Sir John Gilbert's title-page vignette for the American Household Edition of 1863, based on Alice Marwood's return from Transportation in Ch. 34. Right: Harry Furniss's study of the wizened crone and her beautiful daughter earlier, on the heath: Alice Brown and Her Mother (1910).

Other Depictions of the Alice Marwood and Mrs. Browne (1867-1910)

Left: Harry Furniss's earlier scene of Carker's secretly observing Alice and her mother: Carker watching Edith and the old woman (1910). Centre: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s dual character study of the beautiful daughter and her witch-like mother: Mrs. Brown and Alice (1867). Right: Fred Barnard's Household Edition study of the mother and daughter after Alice returns from transportation to take vengeance on her seducer: "She's come back harder than she went!" cried the mother, looking up in her face, and still holding to her knees. (1877).

Related Material, including Other Illustrated Editions of Dombey and Son (1846-1910)

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Bibliography

Dickens, Charles. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by W. L. Sheppard. The Household Edition. 18 vols. New York: Harper & Co., 1873.

__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by F. O. C. Darley and John Gilbert. The Works of Charles Dickens. The Household Edition. 55 vols. New York: Sheldon and Company, 1862. Vols. 1-4.

__________. 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 [62 composite wood-block engravings]. The Works of Charles Dickens. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1877. XV.

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

__________. 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.

__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. IX.

__________. 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.

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

Created 20 February 2022