Jerry Cruncher and His Wife
Sol Eytinge, Jr.
Composite woodblock engraving
1867
10 cm high by 7.5 cm wide (4 inches by 3 inches), framed
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (Diamond Edition, Vol. VIII)
Third of eight illustrations for Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations in the Ticknor & Fields (Boston), Diamond Edition (1867).
Jerry Cruncher and His Wife, full-page illustration, for Book Two, "The Golden Thread," Chapter One ("Five Years Later") in the Diamond Edition, by Sol Eytinge, Jr., in Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867).
An interesting subject not attempted by Phiz in his narrative-pictorial sequence in 1859 is the marriage of Jerry Cruncher and "Aggerawayter" (possibly a blendword composed of "Agatha" and "Aggravator"). Apart from her constantly "flopping" (praying), all we know about Mrs. Cruncher is that she is a "woman of orderly and industrious appearance" (Book 2, Chapter 1) thrown into a perpetual state of trepidation occasioned by her husband's habitually threatening her, in this instance with a muddy boot. Jerry himself, Dickens tells us, is a ruffian possessed of an extremely gruff voice, spiky hair, and rusty fingers. Besides his "day" job as the messenger, occasional porter, and odd-job-man for Tellson's Bank, Temple Bar, Jerry has a nocturnal occupation which he euphemistically describes as "fishing." Certainly Eytinge has captured something of the ghoul in Jerry's surly — almost Frankenstein-monster-like — features as he instructs his son to alert him to any prayerful tendencies on the part of his spouse as he prepares to clean a muddy boot:
. . . while I clean my boots keep a eye upon your mother now and then, and if you see any signs of more flopping, give me a call. For, I tell you," here he addressed his wife once more, "I won't be gone agin, in this manner. I am as rickety as a hackney-coach, I'm as sleepy as laudanum, my lines is strained to that degree that I shouldn't know, if it wasn't for the pain in 'em, which was me and which somebody else, yet I'm none the better for it in pocket; and it's my suspicion that you've been at it from morning to night to prevent me from being the better for it in pocket, and I won't put up with it, Aggerawayter, and what do you say now!"
Growling, in addition, such phrases as "Ah! yes! You're religious, too. You wouldn't put yourself in opposition to the interests of your husband and child, would you? Not you!" and throwing off other sarcastic sparks from the whirling grindstone of his indignation, Mr. Cruncher betook himself to his boot-cleaning and his general preparation for business. [Book Two, "The Golden Thread," Chapter One, "Five Years Later"]
Although Eytinge seems to have studied and upon occasion adapted scenes from the Phiz illustrations, occasionally he attempts scenes in a manner that suggests that John McLenan's abundant illustrations for the 1859 Harper's Weekly serialisation had made an impression on him. As in McLenan's small-scale illustrations, Eytinge offers a symbol — the teapot on the table (left) — to establish the setting, which in this case is the kitchen-parlour of the Crunchers in Hanging-sword Alley, Whitefriars. Barnard would subsequently interpret Jerry as a bully and street thug, but Eytinge's visual characterisation seems closer to McLenan's in "You're at it again, are you?", which Eytinge would have encountered in the 4 June 1859 number of Harper's. The two illustrations share the properties of the boot and teapot, and Mrs. Cruncher is similarly dressed in the 1859 and 1867 illustrations. Although Eytinge's Jerry is decidedly more horrible of visage, he has the same square head and spiky hair, and the same belligerent attitude.
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
Allingham, Philip V. "'Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities (1859) Illustrated: A Critical Reassessment of Hablot Knight Browne's Accompanying Plates." Dickens Studies. 33 (2003): 109-158.
Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ("Phiz"). London: Chapman and Hall, November 1859.
Dickens, Charles. 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.
Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1874. Vol. VIII.
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Created 10 August 2011
Last modified 2 December 2025