[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> A. A. Dixon —> Great Expectations —> Next]
“Again he took both my hands and put them to his lips.”
A. A. Dixon
1905
Watercolour reproduced by lithography
12.8 cm high by 8.5 cm wide (5 inches by 3 ¼ inches)
Sixth illustration for the Collins Pocket Edition, facing the title-page
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham
"Look'ee here!" he went on, taking my watch out of my pocket, and turning towards him a ring on my finger, while I recoiled from his touch as if he had been a snake, "a gold 'un and a beauty: that's a gentleman's, I hope! A diamond all set round with rubies; that's a gentleman's, I hope! Look at your linen; fine and beautiful! Look at your clothes; better ain't to be got! And your books too," turning his eyes round the room, "mounting up, on their shelves, by hundreds! And you read 'em; don’t you? I see you'd been a reading of 'em when I come in. Ha, ha, ha! You shall read 'em to me, dear boy! And if they're in foreign languages wot I don't understand, I shall be just as proud as if I did."
Again he took both my hands and put them to his lips, while my blood ran cold within me.
"Don't you mind talking, Pip," said he, after again drawing his sleeve over his eyes and forehead, as the click came in his throat which I well remembered — and he was all the more horrible to me that he was so much in earnest; "you can't do better nor keep quiet, dear boy. You ain't looked slowly forward to this as I have; you wosn't prepared for this, as I wos. But didn't you never think it might be me?"
"O no, no, no," I returned, "Never, never!" [Chapter 39, page 381]
American illustrator Felix O. C. Darley's treatment of both the convict and his adopted son in this "reunion" scene is far more subtle than that of A. A. Dixon in the 1905 Collins' Pocket Edition, in which the illustrator depicts both the youth's extreme aversion at having physical contact with the convict, and the older man's beseeching look of devotion. However, despite the melodramatic overtones, Dixon's modelling of the figures and detailing of Pip's somewhat cluttered study (full of books and indications of affluence such as the furnishings and portrait on the wall) are as convincing as Darley's, although the 1905 lithograph lacks the sharpness and selectivity of the 1861 photogravure plate with its subtle effects of interior lighting and the emphasis on the contrast between the young, fashionably dressed Pip and the older, rough-and-ready traveller from Australia.
Left: Edward Ardizzone's Pip has a visitor by night (1939). Center: F. A. Fraser's "I rose out of my chair, and stood with my hand upon the back of it" (1876). Right: F. W. Pailthorpe's "On the Stairs" (1885). [Click on images to enlarge them.]
Left: Charles Green's "I made him some hot rum-and-water" (1897). Center: F. O. C. Darley's "The Convict's Return" (1861). Right: Harry Furniss's "Provis" (1910). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Scanned images and texts 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 the images and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. Illustrated by John McLenan. Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization 4 (8 December 1860): 773.
Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. Illustrated by F. O. C. Darley. Volume 1. The Household Edition. New York: James G. Gregory, 1861.
Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. Illustrated by John McLenan. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson, 1861.
Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. Illustrated by Marcus Stone. The Illustrated Library Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1864.
Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Junior. Diamond Edition. 14 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. Vol. XIII.
Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. Illustrated by F. A. Fraser. Volume 6 of the Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1876.
Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. Illustrated by F. W. Pailthorpe. London: Robson & Kerslake, 23 Coventry Street, Haymarket, 1885.
Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. Illustrated by Charles Green. Gadshill Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1897.
Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. Illustrated by H. M. Brock. Imperial Edition. 16 vols. London: Gresham Publishing Company [34 Southampton Street, The Strand, London], 1901-3.
Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. Illustrated by A. A. Dixon. Collins Pocket Edition. London and Glasgow: Collins' Clear-Type Press, 1905.
Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book Company, 1910. Vol 14.
Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. Illustrated by Edward Ardizzone. Heritage Edition. New York: Heritage Press, 1939.
Created 24 February 2014
Last updated 20 August 2026