The first full-page illustration entitled Dombey and Son for Dickens's Dombey and Son. Sol Eytinge, Jr. 7.4 cm high by 10 cm wide, framed. The Diamond Edition of Dickens's Works, Volume III (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867), frontispiece, facing title-page. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Comment
Since Eytinge has made the emotionally detached businessman and his thoughtful young son the subject of his frontispiece, the artist has not positioned the image near a passage describing the relationship between the father and child. However, the illustrator may have had this early passage in mind:
Passage Illustrated: Introducing the Eponymous Characters
Fred Barnard's title-page vignette for the Household Edition:
Dombey was about eight-and-forty years of age. Son about eight-and-forty minutes. Dombey was rather bald, rather red, and though a handsome well-made man, too stern and pompous in appearance, to be prepossessing. Son was very bald, and very red, and though (of course) an undeniably fine infant, somewhat crushed and spotty in his general effect, as yet. On the brow of Dombey, Time and his brother Care had set some marks, as on a tree that was to come down in good time—remorseless twins they are for striding through their human forests, notching as they go—while the countenance of Son was crossed with a thousand little creases, which the same deceitful Time would take delight in smoothing out and wearing away with the flat part of his scythe, as a preparation of the surface for his deeper operations.
Dombey, exulting in the long-looked-for event, jingled and jingled the heavy gold watch-chain that depended from below his trim blue coat, whereof the buttons sparkled phosphorescently in the feeble rays of the distant fire. Son, with his little fists curled up and clenched, seemed, in his feeble way, to be squaring at existence for having come upon him so unexpectedly. [Chapter 1, "Dombey and Son," p. 1]
Relevant Illustrations from Other Editions (1846-1910)
Left: John Leech's cartoon Lord Russell as Paul Dombey (August 1847). Centre: Phiz's original fireside scene: Paul and Mrs. Pipchin (Dec., 1846). Right: Harry Furniss's impressionist revision of the Phiz's original scene, Paul Puzzling Mrs. Pipchin (1910).
Left: Fred Barnard's Household Edition illustration of the father and son: Dombey and Son (1877). Centre: Harry Furniss's frontispiece for the novel: Dombey and Son (1910). Right: W. H. C. Groome's derivative study of the father and son before the fire: "Papa! What's money?" (1900).
Related Material, including Other Illustrated Editions of Dombey and Son
- Dombey and Son (homepage)
- The Diamond Edition of Charles Dickens’s Works
- Phiz's Illustrations for Dombey and Son, Wholesale Retail & for Exportation (Oct. 1846 - April 1848)
- Fred Barnard's 61 illustrations for the Household Edition (1872)
- W. H. C. Groome's eight illustrators for the Collins Pocket Edition (1900)
- Kyd's five Player's Cigarette Cards, 1910
- Harry Furniss's 29 Illustrations for the Charles Dickes Library Edition (1910)
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
Dickens, Charles. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz). 8 coloured plates. London and Edinburgh: Caxton and Ballantyne, Hanson, 1910.
_______. Dombey and Son.16 Illustrations by Sol Eytinge, Jr., and A. V. S. Anthony (engraver). The Diamond Edition. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. III.
_______. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. 61 wood-engravings. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1877. XV.
Hammerton, J. A.. "Ch. XVI. Dombey and Son." The Dickens Picture-Book. London: Educational Book Co., [1910], 294-338.
Created 6 December 2020