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"She's come back harder than she went!" cried the mother
Fred Barnard
1877
13.9 cm high x 10.6 cm wide, framed.
composite wood-block engraving
Dombey and Son, 252
Illustration for Chapter 34, "Another Mother and Daughter," Dickens's Dombey and Son, in the Household Edition, XV.
[Click on the images to enlarge them and mouse over text for links.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham
"Look," returned the visitor.
The old woman repeated the word in a scared uncertain way; and, shading her eyes, looked at the speaker, round the room, and at the speaker once again.
"Alice said look again, mother;" and the speaker fixed her eyes upon her.
Again the old woman looked round the room, and at her visitor, and round the room once more. Hastily seizing the candle, and rising from her seat, she held it to the visitor's face, uttered a loud cry, set down the light, and fell upon her neck!
"It's my gal! It's my Alice! It's my handsome daughter, living and come back!" screamed the old woman, rocking herself to and fro upon the breast that coldly suffered her embrace. "It's my gal! It's my Alice! It's my handsome daughter, living and come back!" she screamed again, dropping on the floor before her, clasping her knees, laying her head against them, and still rocking herself to and fro with every frantic demonstration of which her vitality was capable.
"Yes, mother," returned Alice, stooping forward for a moment and kissing her, but endeavouring, even in the act, to disengage herself from her embrace. "I am here, at last. Let go, mother; let go. Get up, and sit in your chair. What good does this do?"
"She's come back harder than she went!" cried the mother, looking up in her face, and still holding to her knees. "She don't care for me! after all these years, and all the wretched life I've led!"
"Why, mother!" said Alice, shaking her ragged skirts to detach the old woman from them: 'there are two sides to that. There have been years for me as well as you, and there has been wretchedness for me as well as you. Get up, get up!" [Chapter 34, "Another Mother and Daughter," 250]
Although Charles Dickens first published this novel some thirty years ahead of the appearance of the Household Edition volume of 1877, readers may well have had Phiz's excellent narrative-pictorial sequence in mind in reading the new edition. Consequently, Fred Barnard had to make sure that his presentations of the characters were consistent with those of the original serial illustrator. Such is the case with Carker's ex-mistress, Alice Marwood, and her mother, the crone and child-robber, Good Mrs. Brown.
In the Household Edition illustrations for the novel, Barnard focuses on the backstory of the villainous James Carker as well as on the nautical characters associated with Walter Gay and Florence Dombey. The scene here, as in John Gilbert's frontispiece for the third volume of the elegant 1860s New York piracy also called "The Household Edition," involves the reunion of a transported felon and her mother, Good Mrs. Brown, whom Dickens describes with imagery associated with witchcraft. As with the Chapman and Hall 1877 Household Edition illustration from the same chapter, veteran British periodical illustrator John Gilbert in "It's my handsome daughter, living and come back," she screamed again. . . (vol. 3), has produced an illustration whose effectiveness depends upon the sharp contrast between binary opposites: the defiant, aloof, erect, handsome young woman and decrepit, exhausted, grovelling crone, an iteration of the novel's col temp theme. The lengthy caption enables the reader to identify the precise moment illustrated since the passage illustrated occurs two pages ahead of the plate.
An analeptic reading, then, is likely since the reader has foreknowledge of the textual moment that explicates James Carker's backstory and his betrayal of his mistress, Alice Marwood (the alias of Alice Brown, depicted here). These details, including Alice's uncanny resemblance to Edith Granger (whose uncle seduced Good Mrs. Brown), are provided in Chapters 33 and 34. The illustration is therefore significant in highlighting the importance of this subplot, which Dickens's original illustrator, 1847 engraving The Rejected Alms exemplified by depicting Alice and her mother, left, and James Carker's older brother, John, and sister, Harriet, who live in a simple cottage outside London. Alice and her mother return Harriet's charity with disdain once they discover Harriet's relationship to James Carker. The cause of the antipathy is James's refusal to come to the aid of Alice and her elderly mother, now living in a hovel with a leaky roof in the heart of east London. This, then, is the context of the scene depicted by Fred Barnard and John Gilbert — and Barnard captures effectively the cringing crone's desperation and her tall daughter's pride. A metonymy for the dire condition under which Mrs. Brown lives is the guttering candle in the bottle, and the cracks in the plaster, upper right.
Fred Barnard in his illustrations for various Household Edition volume, 1872-79, is responding to the work of Dickens's original illustrators, particularly Phiz; also responding to Phiz's Dombey and Son illustrations, John Gilbert and Felix Octavius Carr Darley for the 55-volume "Household" Edition issued by various New York publishers in the 1860s produced elegantly engraved frontispieces that British illustrators such as Barnard and Mahoney are not likely to have seen. Consequently, although Phiz influenced all of these later illustrators, they did not influence each other.
Left: Phiz's August 1847 introduction of Good Mrs. Brown and her daughter, The Rejected Alms. Left of centre: John Gilbert's engraved frontispiece depicting the daughter's return, "It's my handsome daughter, living and come back," she screamed again. . .. Right of centre: Phiz's February 1848 finalé of the Marwood plot, Secret Intelligence. Left: Harry Furniss's introduction of Good Mrs. Brown and her daughter on a blasted heath, Alice Brown and Her Mother (1910).
Dickens, Charles. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Phiz. (Hablot K. Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, 1848.
_______. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz). 8 coloured plates. London and Edinburgh: Caxton and Ballantyne, Hanson, 1910.
_______. 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 — Sixty-two Illustrations by Fred Barnard." Scenes and Characters from the Works of Charles Dickens, Being Eight Hundred and Sixty-six Drawings by Fred Barnard, Gordon Thomson, Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz), J. McL. Ralston, J. Mahoney, H. French, Charles Green, E. G. Dalziel, A. B. Frost, F. A. Fraser, and Sir Luke Fildes. London: Chapman and Hall, 1907.
Created 27 March 2017
Last modified 31 December 2020