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Watercolour of the F. W. Cosens title-page
George Cruikshank, 1792-1878
27 September 1866
13 watercolour vignettes
Modelled on the 31 December 1845 wrapper for the ten monthly instalments of The Adventures of Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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Dickens and Cruikshank had parted company with perhaps a little ill-feeling as a result of Dickens's requiring the artist to redraft entirely the final serial illustration, The Fireside, or Cancelled Plate. Cruikshank likely regarded the editor's demand as an imposition because he had completed the final sequences of plates earlier, and these had already appeared in the third volume of the Richard Bentley triple-decker (9 November 1838). Dickens later compensated Cruikshank for the inconvenience of having to revise Oliver and His Family by recommending him to Bradbury and Evans as the designer of the 1846 serial wrapper. This, in turn, seems to have been the basis for the formatting of Cruikshank's title-page for the water-colour series that Cosens commissioned from the artist in 1866, even though Cruikshank modelled the thirteen vignettes directly on his 1838-39 Berntley's illustrations rather than on tghe vignettes in the 1846 serial wrapper.
This sketch is intended as a sort of Title page to the twenty-four watercolour Sketches compiled by me — George Cruikshank — from my illustrations for OLIVER TWIST and made especially for my friend F. W. Cosens 27 September 1866.
In the 27 September 1866 designs of the thirteen vignettes (expanded from the eleven that occurred in the 1846 wrapper), Oliver clearly dominates the narrative-pictorial sequence, appearing prominently nine times. Housebreaker Bill Sikes appears just four times, but Cruikshank has accorded him the spotlight, as it were, by placing The Last Chance at the apex of the design, and by making it by far the largest vignette in the sequence. The other well-known characters who make multiple appearances are Fagin (three times), Jack Dawkins (twice), and Bull's-Eye (twice). Now mentioned visually although not in the original wrapper (perhaps because Cruikshank wished to underscore their importance in the plot) are "Monks" or Edwin Leeford (twice), Mr. Brownlow (twice), Mr. and Mrs. Bumble (once); and Nancy (once). Cruikshank seems to have avoided showing female characters as much as possible in the original 1846 wrapper, but in the Cosens watercolour images of four women appear: Mrs. Bumble (Corney), Rose Maylie, Nancy, and Mrs. Bedwin, Mr. Brownlow's housekeeper (once).
Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. New York and Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1990.
Cohen, Jane Rabb. "George Cruikshank." Charles Dickens and His Original Illustrators. Columbus: Ohio State U. P., 1980. Pp. 15-38.
Dickens, Charles. The Adventures of Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress. Illustrated by George Cruikshank. London: Bradbury and Evans; Chapman and Hall, 1846.
_______. The Adventures of Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress. Illustrated by George Cruikshank. London & New York: Macmillan, 1892 [contains reproductions of the 1846 wrapper, of the first page of the 1838 Bentley volume, and of the first page of the Prest serial, Oliver Twiss].
Grego, Joseph (intro). "The Special Title-page, thirteen drawings, designed in water colours for George Cruikshank's series of finished water-colour drawings executed as a commission for his friend, F. W. Cosens." Cruikshank's Water Colours with introduction by joseph Grego.. [27 Oliver Twist illustrations, including the wrapper and the 13-vignette title-page produced for F. W. Cosens; 20 plates for William Harrison Ainsworth's The Miser's Daughter: A Tale of the Year [1774]; 20 plates plus the proofcover the work for W. H. Maxwell's History of the Irish Rebellion in 1798 and Emmetts Insurrection in 1803]. London: A. & C. Black, 1903. [OT = pp. 1-106]. xxviii.
Kitton, Frederic G. "George Cruikshank." Dickens and His Illustrators: Cruikshank, Seymour, Buss, "Phiz," Cattermole, Leech, Doyle, Stanfield, Maclise, Tenniel, Frank Stone, Topham, Marcus Stone, and Luke Fildes. 1899. Rpt. Honolulu: U. Press of the Pacific, 2004. Pp. 1-28.
Created 16 October 2014 Last modified 7 January 2022