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Flung itself upon the foremost one, knelt down upon its breast, and clutched its throat with both hands
Fred Barnard
1874
5 7⁄16 x 4 3⁄16 inches (13.8 cm by 10.6 cm), framed
Dickens's Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty, Vol. VII of the Household Edition, Chapter LVI, 217.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
Long before the echo of his cry had died away, another form rushed out into the light, flung itself upon the foremost one, knelt down upon its breast, and clutched its throat with both hands.
"Villain!" cried Mr. Haredale, in a terrible voice — for it was he. "Dead and buried, as all men supposed through your infernal arts, but reserved by Heaven for this — at last — at last I have you. You, whose hands are red with my brother’s blood, and that of his faithful servant, shed to conceal your own atrocious guilt — You, Rudge, double murderer and monster, I arrest you in the name of God, who has delivered you into my hands. No. Though you had the strength of twenty men," he added, as the murderer writhed and struggled, "you could not escape me or loosen my grasp to-night!" [Chapter the Fifty-sixth, 264]
Barnard transforms the relatively staid, architectural illustration of the first edition (see below) into a melodramatic stage scene in which, in stark chiaroscuro the white and grey smoke billows upward in contrast to the still, burnt-out ruins of the Warren's tower, and a furious Geoffrey Haredale, his face a mask of boiling vengeance, grabs the throat of his brother's killer with a sinewy hand. His prey seems barely human as fear transforms his blotchy visage into that of a demon.
Above: George Cattermole's affirmation of the powers of Nemesis in The Murderer Arrested (28 August 1841).
Dickens, Charles. Barnaby Rudge in Master Humphrey's Clock. Illustrated by Phiz and George Cattermole. 3 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1841.
_______. Barnaby Rudge. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. 16 vols. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867.
________. Barnaby Rudge — A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1874. VII.
________. The Dickens Souvenir Book. London: Chapman & Hall, 1912.
Hammerton, J. A. "Ch. XIV. Barnaby Rudge." The Dickens Picture-Book. The Charles Dickens Library Edition, illustrated by Harry Furniss. London: Educational Book Co., 1910. 213-55.
Created 20 August 2020
Last modified 1 October 2020