In Agony of Soul.
Arthur A. Dixon
1906
lithograph
4 ⅞ inches high by 3 ⅛ inches wide (12.2 cm by 8.1 cm)
Fourth regular illustration for the Collins Pocket edition, facing p. 152.
In the outskirts, stands a great prison, called the Eastern Penitentiary: conducted on a plan peculiar to the state of Pennsylvania. The system here, is rigid, strict, and hopeless solitary confinement. I believe it, in its effects, to be cruel and wrong. ["Philadelphia, and Its Solitary Prison," 153]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
Passage Realised: The Solitary Prisoner — Victim of the Solitary System
As I walked among these solitary cells, and looked at the faces of the men within them, I tried to picture to myself the thoughts and feelings natural to their condition. I imagined the hood just taken off, and the scene of their captivity disclosed to them in all its dismal monotony.
At first, the man is stunned. His confinement is a hideous vision; and his old life a reality. He throws himself upon his bed, and lies there abandoned to despair. By degrees the insupportable solitude and barrenness of the place rouses him from this stupor, and when the trap in his grated door is opened, he humbly begs and prays for work. ‘Give me some work to do, or I shall go raving mad!’
He has it; and by fits and starts applies himself to labour; but every now and then there comes upon him a burning sense of the years that must be wasted in that stone coffin, and an agony so piercing in the recollection of those who are hidden from his view and knowledge, that he starts from his seat, and striding up and down the narrow room with both hands clasped on his uplifted head, hears spirits tempting him to beat his brains out on the wall.
Again he falls upon his bed, and lies there, moaning. Suddenly he starts up, wondering whether any other man is near; whether there is another cell like that on either side of him: and listens keenly. [Chapter VII, "Philadelphia, and Its Solitary Prison," 153]
Commentary
Charles Dickens here and elsewhere expressed distaste for the system which Great Britain introduced at Pentonville Prison, Middlesex, the so-called "Solitary System," designed to prevent recidivism by isolating prisoners rather than placing them in a general lock-up where they could learn the nefarious ways of the underworld from highly experienced fellow criminals. Previous illustrators, in contrast, have indeed focussed on the evils of the "Silent System" of Britain's Pentonville Prison, Reading Gaol, and Belfast's Crumlin Road Prison as adapted by American penal authorities in the City of Brotherly Love. But Dixon, aware of the illustrations for American Notes of such gifted predecessors as Marcus Stone, Edward Dalziel, and possibly American A. B. Frost (1880), nevertheless had a relatively free hand as only Stone and Barnard up to that point had realised Dickens's description of the victim of the Solitary System, focussing on the figure: The Solitary Prisoner (1874). Harry Stone's compelling image of despair, The Solitary Prisoner, was five years away from publication in the Charles Dickens Library Edition, Volume XIII (1910). Ironically, Dixon's caption for the study of the agonised victim does not occur on page 164, for the phrase "the old agony" occurs on page 167. Dixon does, however, depict the cell as an artisan's workshop to show that the Panopticon System does include trades training. In addition to simple, wooden bench, a metal door with a small grate, and a tiny window (upper right), the crowded cell contains a bench, a vice, a plane, and wood-shavings, all illustrative of the productive labour ("work") in which the isolated convict is engaged. However, Dixon's unique contribution to published images of the prisoner is his youthful face: he stares vacantly off into space, unaware (apparently) of his incarceration, stunned, and immobilised.
Left: Marcus Stone's The Solitary Prisoner (1874). Centre: Fred Barnard's version in the Household Edition, Vol. XXII: He looked up at me. (1879). Right: Harry Furniss, The Solitary Prisoner (1910).
Related Materials
- "Philadelphia, and its Solitary Prison," Chapter 7 in American Notes (1842)
- Introduction to "Philadelphia, and its Solitary Prison" (18 October 1842)
- Reading and Discussion Questions
- Charles Dickens, the traveler — places he visited
- The Panopticon System: Machines That Make Machines
- Designing the Workhouse
- Dickens's 1842 Reading Tour: Launching the Copyright Question in Tempestuous Seas
Bibliography
Bailey, Victor. “Part 7. Silent and Separate Systems of Prison Discipline.” Chapter 40. Charles Dickens, “On the Eastern Penitentiary, Philadelphia,” American Notes, 1st published in 1842. Nineteenth-Century Crime and Punishment. Vol. 3, Prisons and Prisoners. London and New York: Routledge, 2022. Pp. 1-19.
Darley, Felix Octavius Carr. “A Visit to Newgate.” Frontispiece for Dickens’s Sketches by Boz, Volume 1. New York: Sheldon and Company, 1865.
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. American Notes for General Circulation and Pictures from Italy. The Illustrated Library Edition. Illustrated by Marcus Stone. London: Chapman & Hall, 1874.
Dickens, Charles. American Notes and Pictures from Italy, Volume XX, in the New York: P. F. Collier & Son edition, n. d.
Dickens, Charles. American Notes. Illustrated by A. A. Dixon. London and Glasgow: Collins Clear-Type Press, 1906.
Dickens, Charles. American Notes and Pictures from Italy, Volume 20, in the New York: P. F. Collier & Son edition, n. d.
Furniss, Harry (illustrator). “The Solitary Prisoner.” Frontispiece for Dickens’s American Notes and Pictures from Italy. Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. XIII.
Dickens, Charles. Pictures from Italy and American Notes for General Circulation. Illustrated by Thomas Nast. Household Edition. 16 vols. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1877. Vol. VII.
Schlicke, Paul. The Oxford Reader's Companion to Dickens. Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1999.
Stone, Marcus. “The Solitary Prisoner.” Chapter 7, “Philadelphia and Its Solitary Prison.” Dickens’s American Notes for General Circulation. Illustrated Library Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1874. Facing p. 124.
Created 4 September 2026