And smoothing her rich hair — Fred Barnard's eighth illustration for "A Tale of Two Cities" (1874)

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And smoothing her rich hair

Fred Barnard

Dalziel, engraver

1874

13.9 by 10.7 cm (5 ½ inches high by 4 ¼ inches wide)

Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, Household Edition, Vol. VIII.

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham

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Passage Illustrated: Miss Pross fusses over her "Ladybird."

Miss Pross was a pleasant sight, albeit wild, and red, and grim, taking off her darling's bonnet when she came up-stairs, and touching it up with the ends of her handkerchief, and blowing the dust off it, and folding her mantle ready for laying by, and smoothing her rich hair with as much pride as she could possibly have taken in her own hair if she had been the vainest and handsomest of women. [44-45]

Commentary

Dickens describes the relationship between the beautiful Lucie Manette and her older friend — almost a surrogate mother — Miss Pross, who dotes upon the teenager, calling her "Ladybird" and generally treating her as if Lucie were her daughter in A Tale of Two Cities, Book the Second, "The Golden Thread," Ch. VI, "Hundreds of People." Taking into account the lengthy title of the illustration, "And smoothing her rich hair with as much pride as she could possibly have taken in her own hair if she had been the vainest and handsomest of women" (p. 45), the reader would likely make the connection between this eighth woodcut and the passage (above) that begins on the facing page.

The relationship is not nearly so closely described in Phiz's original narrative-pictorial sequence for the novel, the relevant illustration being Hundreds of People (December 1859), the frontispiece that shows Lucie with her father, Lorry, Carton, and Darnay, but significantly not Miss Pross, whom Phiz depicts clearly only in The Double Recognition (the other December, 1859, monthly number's illustration). Her only other appearance in Barnard's sequence is the important scene in which she defies Madame Defarge, wrestles with her, and inadvertently kills the French nemesis with Madame Defarge's own firearm in order to protect her "Ladybird."

John Mclenan, the American illustrator for the Harper's serialisation of the novel, appears not to have been much interested in Miss Pross, showing her in Miss Pross and Mr. Lorry, 25 June 1859, and at the climactic moment when Miss Pross thwarts Madame Defarge's plans in Like the soul of the furious woman whose body lay lifeless on the ground in the 26 November 1859 weekly instalment. Certainly Barnard's old maid and proud subject of King George III is a far more formidable figure than those of Phiz and Mclenan.

Other Illustrated Editions (1859-1910)

Related Material

Bibliography

Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Checkmark and Facts On File, 1998.

Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities. Illustrated by John McLenan. Harper's Weekly. (26 November 1859): 765.

_____. A Tale of Two Cities. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ("Phiz"). London: Chapman and Hall, November 1859.

_____. A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. 14 vols. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867. Vol. XIII.

_____. A Tale of Two Cities. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1874. Vol. VIII.

_____. A Tale of Two Cities. Illustrated by A. A. Dixon. London: Collins, 1905.

_____. A Tale of Two Cities, American Notes, and Pictures from Italy. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book Co., 1910. Vol. XIII.

Guiliano, Edward, and Philip Collins, eds. The Annotated Dickens. 2 vols. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1986.

Knight, Charles. The Popular History of England. Vol. VII. London: Chapman and Hall, 1857.

Sanders, Andrew. A Companion to "A Tale of Two Cities." The Dickens Companion Series, Vol. 4. London: Unwin Hyman, 1988.

Vann, J. Don. "A Tale of Two Cities in All the Year Round, 30 April — 26 November 1859." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: The Modern Language Association, 1985. Pp. 71-72.

Created 17 February 2011
Last updated 25 January 2026