"The Spider and the Fly." (1872) — Fred Barnard's thirty-third illustration for Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit (Chapter XXVIII), page 225. [Respectively Mr. Tigg Montague, swindling insurance magnate, right, and Jonas Chuzzlewit, gullible shareholder in the Anglo-Bengalee: given Jonas's volatile and vindictive nature, one may rightly wonder who is the spider and who the fly since both are caught up and ultimately destroyed by Montague Tigg's web of deceit.] 10.5 cm x 13.7 cm, or 4 ¼ high by 5 ½ inches, framed, engraved by the Dalziels. Running head: “A Recruit," 225. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Passage Apparently Illustrated
Greatly charmed by this, Jonas began again.
"The long and the short of it is —"
"Better," muttered Tigg. "Much better!"
"— That I didn’t consider myself very well used by one or two of the old companies in some negotiations I have had with ‘em — once had, I mean. They started objections they had no right to start, and put questions they had no right to put, and carried things much too high for my taste."
As he made these observations he cast down his eyes, and looked curiously at the carpet. Mr. Tigg looked curiously at him.
He made so long a pause, that Tigg came to the rescue, and said, in his pleasantest manner:
"Take a glass of wine."
"No, no," returned Jonas, with a cunning shake of the head; "none of that, thankee. No wine over business. All very well for you, but it wouldn’t do for me."
"What an old hand you are, Mr. Chuzzlewit!" said Tigg, leaning back in his chair, and leering at him through his half-shut eyes. [Chapter XXVII, "Showing That Old Friends May Not Only Appear with New Faces, But in False Colours. That People Are Prone to Bite; and That Biters May Sometimes be Bitten," 225]
Comment
Dickens mentions the oil portrait as the dominating feature of the board-room, but Barnard has merely suggested it on the wall between Jonas and Tigg. The illustrator generalizes the "Turkey carpet," but indicates the writing table and the ornate sideboard; the Director in his floral silk dressing-gown occupies, as in the text, "a very imposing chair of office." Barnard's invention is the wide-mouthed tiger's head on the wall. As in the original Phiz illustration, the composition does not permit sufficient scope for "a long-table, set out at intervals with sheets of blotting-paper, foolscap, clean pens, and ink-stands." The effect of the 1872 composite woodblock engraving depends largely upon the contrast between the fawning Jonas in business suit and the supremely self-assured, nattily dressed company director, the image a perfect complement to his persuasive, confidential voice in the letterpress.
Relevant Illustrations from Other Editions (1843 and 1910)
Left: Phiz's serial illustration of Mr. Tigg and the Board of the Anglo-Bengalee: The Board (November 1843). Right: Harry Furniss's interpretation of the same characters, Jonas Chuzzlewit and Montague Tigg, in Chapter 37 of the Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Scanned images and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use these 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
Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. New York and Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1990.
Dickens, Charles. The Dickens Souvenir Book. Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1871-1880. The copy of The Dickens Souvenir Book from which these pictures were scanned is in the collection of the Main Library of The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B. C.
Dickens, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne. London: Chapman and Hall, 1844.
_____. Martin Chuzzlewit. Works of Charles Dickens. Household Edition. 55 vols. Illustrated by F. O. C. Darley and John Gilbert. New York: Sheldon and Co., 1863. Vol. 2 of 4.
_____. Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1872. Vol. 2.
_____. Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated Sterling Edition. Illustrated by Hablot K. Browne and Frederick Barnard. Boston: Dana Estes, n. d. [1890s]
_____. Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. 7.
Steig, Michael. "From Caricature to Progress: Master Humphrey's Clock and Martin Chuzzlewit." Ch. 3, Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U.P., 1978. Pp. 51-85. [See e-text in Victorian Web.]
Steig, Michael. "Martin Chuzzlewit's Progress by Dickens and Phiz." Dickens Studies Annual 2 (1972): 119-149.
3 February 2008
Last modified 23 November 2024