Barnaby Rudge and His Raven, Grip
Fred Barnard
1884
10 ¼ inches high by 7 ½ inches wide (26.1 cm high by 18.8 cm wide), framed.
One of six lithographs in A Series of Character Sketches from Dickens, from the Original Drawings by Frederick Barnard. . .. (Series 2, 1884). [Click on illustration to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
Passage Illustrated: A Verbal Portrait of the Developmentally Arrested Barnaby
He was about three-and-twenty years old, and though rather spare, of a fair height and strong make. His hair, of which he had a great profusion, was red, and hanging in disorder about his face and shoulders, gave to his restless looks an expression quite unearthly — enhanced by the paleness of his complexion, and the glassy lustre of his large protruding eyes. Startling as his aspect was, the features were good, and there was something even plaintive in his wan and haggard aspect. But, the absence of the soul is far more terrible in a living man than in a dead one; and in this unfortunate being its noblest powers were wanting.
His dress was of green, clumsily trimmed here and there — apparently by his own hands — with gaudy lace; brightest where the cloth was most worn and soiled, and poorest where it was at the best. A pair of tawdry ruffles dangled at his wrists, while his throat was nearly bare. He had ornamented his hat with a cluster of peacock's feathers, but they were limp and broken, and now trailed negligently down his back. Girt to his side was the steel hilt of an old sword without blade or scabbard; and some parti-coloured ends of ribands and poor glass toys completed the ornamental portion of his attire. The fluttered and confused disposition of all the motley scraps that formed his dress, bespoke, in a scarcely less degree than his eager and unsettled manner, the disorder of his mind, and by a grotesque contrast set off and heightened the more impressive wildness of his face. — Chapter III, Household Edition, page 15.
Commentary
Curiously, Cassell and Company have substituted Betsy Trotwood for this dynamic realisation of the wild rambler of the moors who gets caught up in the "No Popery" street violence of the capital in Dickens's fifth complete novel (1841). How does Barnard realise this visually-stunning youth with "the absence of the soul" in such a way that the viewer is emotionally engaged rather than repulsed? The artist has focussed on the wildness of his face, making it reflect the exuberance and atavism of Grip: it is if the two are one entity, the energy of the one feeding the other. The wild pair seem natural emanations of the heath upon which they companionably ramble. Despite Barnaby's manic expression, we cannot but admire his unbridled enthusiasm and sheer life force, a consciousness uninformed by a soul, perhaps, but thoroughly engaged in the business of living alongside other lifeforms on the heath. Conspicuous in Barnard's study is Banarby's capacious wicker basket through which Barnard emphasizes the fact that Grip can go everywhere that Barnaby goes. This, then, is Barnaby's proper milieu, rather than the mean streets of the metropolis, where he becomes the dupe of the leaders of the Gordon Riots.
Relevant Illustrations for this Novel (1841 through 1910)
Left: Phiz's engraved frontispiece for the 1841 volume edition: Barnaby Rudge. Left of centre: Fred Barnard's Household Edition title-page vignette Barnaby and the Rioters' Standard (1874). Right of centre: Felix Octavius Carr Darley's photogravure study in his 1888 Character Sketches from Dickens: Barnaby Rudge and Grip the Raven. Right: Harry Furniss's frontispiece for the Charles Dickens Library Edition, Barnaby and Grip the Raven (1910).
Related Material including Other Illustrated Editions of Barnaby Rudge
- Dickens's Barnaby Rudge (homepage)
- Cattermole and Phiz: The First illustrators: A Team Effort by "The Clock Works" (1841)
- Phiz's Original Serial Illustrations (13 Feb.-27 Nov. 1841)
- Cattermole's Seventeen Illustrations (13 Feb.- 27 Nov. 1841)
- Felix Octavius Carr Darley's Six Illustrations (1865 and 1888)
- Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s ten Diamond Edition Illustrations (1867)
- A. H. Buckland's six illustrations for the Collins' Clear-type Pocket Edition (1900)
- Harry Furniss's 28 illustrations for The Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910)
Bibliography
Dickens, Charles. Barnaby Rudge in Master Humphrey's Clock. Illustrated by Phiz and George Cattermole. 3 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1841; rpt., Bradbury and Evans, 1849.
________. Barnaby Rudge — A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1874. VII.
A Series of Character Sketches from Dickens, from the Original Drawings by Frederick Barnard, Being Facsimiles of Original Drawings by Fred. Barnard. London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, 1884.
A Series of Character Sketches from Dickens, in Colour from the Original Drawings by Frederick Barnard Barnard. [Series 1: Mrs. Gamp, The Two Wellers, Mr. Pecksniff, Caleb Plummer and His Blind Daughter, Captain Cuttle, Bill Sikes. Series 2: Barnaby Rudge, Mr. Peggotty, Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim; Mr. Pickwick, Sydney Carton, Mr. Micawber]. London: Waverley, circa 1910.
Created 9 February 2025