One of six chromolithographs in A Series of Character Sketches from Dickens, from the Original Drawings by Frederick Barnard, No. 2: Rogue Riderhood at Limehouse Hole — Our Mutual Friend (1884-85). Chromolithograph: 10 ½ inches high by 7 ¼ inches wide (26.3 cm by 18.4 cm), framed. Lithograph: 11.1 cm high by 9 cm wide ((4 ¼ by 3 ½ inches), framed (page 16). [Click on either illustration to enlarge it.]
Passage Illustrated: Revealed in Dialogue
Mortimer lighted the candles. They showed the visitor to be an ill-looking visitor with a squinting leer, who, as he spoke, fumbled at an old sodden fur cap, formless and mangey, that looked like a furry animal, dog or cat, puppy or kitten, drowned and decaying.
‘Now,’ said Mortimer, ‘what is it?’
‘Governors Both,’ returned the man, in what he meant to be a wheedling tone, ‘which on you might be Lawyer Lightwood?’
‘I am.’
‘Lawyer Lightwood,’ ducking at him with a servile air, ‘I am a man as gets my living, and as seeks to get my living, by the sweat of my brow. Not to risk being done out of the sweat of my brow, by any chances, I should wish afore going further to be swore in.’
‘I am not a swearer in of people, man.’
The visitor, clearly anything but reliant on this assurance, doggedly muttered ‘Alfred David.’
‘Now,’ said Lightwood, for the third time, ‘if you have quite completed your various preparations, my friend, and have fully ascertained that your spirits are cool and not in any way hurried, what’s your name?’
‘Roger Riderhood.’
‘Dwelling-place?’
‘Lime’us Hole.’
‘Calling or occupation?’
Not quite so glib with this answer as with the previous two, Mr. Riderhood gave in the definition, ‘Waterside character.’ — Book I, Chapter XII, Household Edition, 67.
Commentary: Foregrounding an Interesting Secondary Character
Rogue Riderhood is something of a rarity in Dickens: an interesting secondary character only cursorily described; thus, Barnard had a relatively free hand in constructing this portrait of the surly waterman, despite realisations by Marcus Stone (1865) and James Mahoney (1875). A decidedly unsavoury character with a squinting leer, Rogue Riderhood here is probably looking for the bodies living as well as dead that he fishes up from the Thames at Limehouse Hole on the Isle of the Dogs, between the Southwest India Dock and Garford Street in the Parish of Poplar, London.
Since Barnard had not likely seen the American visual interpretations of the novel, by Darley and Eytinge, for his full-length portrait of the sardonic Thames waterman, formerly Gaffer Hexam's partner, he would have had to turn to the few illustrations by Marcus Stone in the first illustrated edition (1865) and by James Mahoney in the Household Edition. Roger ("Rogue") Riderhood, is distinguished by squinting leer and sodden, old fur hat from his first appearance in the novel, in Miss Abbey Potterson's waterside tavern, The Three Jolly Fellowship Porters.
The models for Fred Barnard's stunning interpretation are several of Marcus Stone's original serial images, specifically, the June 1864 instalment's At the Bar (Book One, "The Cup and the Lip," Chapter 6, "Cut Adrift"), as well as theMarch 1865 instalment's Rogue Riderhood's Recovery (Book Three, "A Long Lane," Chapter 3, "The Same Respected Friend in More Aspects than One"). These, however, would not have given Barnard the many details which he has included in his river scene. We see Riderhood described as the attorneys Lightwood and Rayburn see him, a hoarse "ghost" with a squinting leer," fumbling with "an old sodden fur cap, formless and mangy" (Book One, Ch. 12). A disreputable, "ill-looking" fellow with a stocky figure, Riderhood is shiftless, devious, and utterly untrustworthy. Moreover, even referring to Mahoney's Household Edition illustrations of the gruff, opportunistic blackmailer, the caricaturist Kyd (Clayton J. Clarke) would later have to invent many visual aspects of a character for whom Dickens does not provide a comprehensive verbal portrait — including suitable clothing. In And now, as the man held out the bottle to fill all around, Riderhood stood up, leaned over the table to look closer at the knife, and started from it to him (Book the Second, "Birds of a Feather," Chapter 12, "More Birds of Prey") and Rogue Riderhood recognized his 't'other governor, Mr. Eugene Rayburn (Book the Fourth, "A Turning," Chapter 1, "Setting Traps"), set at the Plashwater Mill-lock, Barnard would have found a figure similar to Marcus Stone's. Kyd's Player's Cigarette Card No. 33 portrait of the pipe-smoking waterman-turned-lock-keeper in Rogue Riderhood (1910) is far less knowing and emotionally engaging than Barnard's here.
Relevant Illustrations of Riderhood in Other Editions
Left: An elegant illustration that copyright law probably prevented Barnard from seeing, Felix Octavius Carr Darley's photgravure frontispiece for the 1866 American volume edition: Riderhood Checkmated (for Book II, Chapter XII). Centre: Sol Eytinge's Diamond Edition vignette of the Riderhoods in a domestic abuse situation, Rogue Riderhood and Miss Pleasant at Home (1867). Right: Marcus Stone's impression of Riderhood: Rogue Riderhood's Recovery (March 1865).
Related Materials: Background, Setting, Theme, Characterization, and Illustration
- Imagination and Fragmentation of Human Bodies/Bodies Politic in Our Mutual Friend
- Understanding Jenny Wren: The Parent of an Alcoholic Father
- The debate over character and education
- The Story of Dickens's Last Complete Novel — a review of Sean Grass's Charles Dickens's "Our Mutual Friend": A Publishing History (2014)
- The Evening the Veneerings gave a banquet
- Sol Eytinge's illustrations for the novel (with commentaries)
- Marcus Stone's original illustrations for the novel (with commentaries)
- Illustrations by James Mahoney (1875)
- Frontispieces by Felix Octavius Carr Darley (1866)
- Illustration by Harold Copping (1923)
Scanned images and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use the images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned them, and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
Barnard, Fred. Character Sketches from Dickens. (16 photogravure illustrations). London, Paris & Melbourne: Cassell, 1885.
Barnard, Fred. A Series of Character Sketches from Dickens, from the Original Drawings by Frederick Barnard, Being Facsimiles of Original Drawings by Fred. Barnard. Series 1. London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, 1884.
Dickens, Charles. Our Mutual Friend, with 39 illustrations by Marcus Stone. London: Chapman and Hall, 1865.
Dickens, Charles. Our Mutual Friend, with 58 illustrations by James Mahoney. Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1875. Vol. IX.
Created 14 February 2025
Last updated 19 September 2026