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At Mrs. Gargery's Funeral
Harry Furniss
1910
7.6 x 3.8 inches
"Pocket-handkerchiefs out, all!" cried Mr. Trabb, in a depressed business-like voice — 'We are ready!' We all put our handkerchiefs to our faces, and filed out two and two; Joe and I leading. — p. 266
Dickens's Great Expectations, Library Edition, facing p. 272.
[Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
“Pocket-handkerchiefs out, all!” cried Mr. Trabb at this point, in a depressed business-like voice. “Pocket-handkerchiefs out! We are ready!”
So we all put our pocket-handkerchiefs to our faces, as if our noses were bleeding, and filed out two and two; Joe and I; Biddy and Pumblechook; Mr. and Mrs. Hubble. The remains of my poor sister had been brought round by the kitchen door, and, it being a point of Undertaking ceremony that the six bearers must be stifled and blinded under a horrible black velvet housing with a white border, the whole looked like a blind monster with twelve human legs, shuffling and blundering along, under the guidance of two keepers, — the postboy and his comrade.
The neighbourhood, however, highly approved of these arrangements, and we were much admired as we went through the village; the more youthful and vigorous part of the community making dashes now and then to cut us off, and lying in wait to intercept us at points of vantage. [Chapter XXXV, p. 266]
Mr. Trabb takes punctilious delight in the public display of formalized grief; as an act by an arrogant and actually disinterested impressario, Trabb's effusive mourning pageant contrasts the genuine grief of honest Joe Gargery in Dickens's text. Joe speaks for his author when he tells Pip the kind of burial and mourning he would prefer: “I meantersay, sir, as I would in preference have carried her to the church myself, along with three or four friendly ones wot come to it with willing harts and arms,” but he cannot follow his own wishes, he tells Pip, because “it were considered wot the neighbours would look down on such [a scaled down ritual] and would be of opinions as it were wanting in respect.” At this point, Trabb, the local undertaker, orders the mourners to act out their supposed grief. Furniss captures the essential theatricality of the ceremony as Dickens describes it. But the later illustrator merely surrounds Pip and Joe (centre) with the sham mourners and does not effectively contrast Joe and Trabb as John Mclenan does in the parallel Harper's Weekly illustration.
Above: In the first American serialisation, periodical illustrator John McLenan emphasizes the presence of Joe in mourning rather than the stagemanagement of the local undertaker, Mr. Trabb, in "Dear Joe, how are you?" (20 April 1861).
Allingham, Philip V. "The Illustrations for Great Expectations in Harper's Weekly (1860-61) and in the Illustrated Library Edition (1862) — 'Reading by the Light of Illustration'." Dickens Studies Annual, Vol. 40 (2009): 113-169.
Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. Illustrated by John McLenan. [The First American Edition]. Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization, Vols. IV: 740 through V: 495 (24 November 1860-3 August 1861).
______. ("Boz."). Great Expectations. With thirty-four illustrations from original designs by John McLenan. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson (by agreement with Harper & Bros., New York), 1861.
______. Great Expectations. Illustrated by Marcus Stone. The Illustrated Library Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1862. Rpt. in The Nonesuch Dickens, Great Expectations and Hard Times. London: Nonesuch, 1937; Overlook and Worth Presses, 2005.
______. A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. 16 vols. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867.
______. Great Expectations. Volume 6 of the Household Edition. Illustrated by F. A. Fraser. London: Chapman and Hall, 1876.
______. Great Expectations. The Gadshill Edition. Illustrated by Charles Green. London: Chapman and Hall, 1898.
______. Great Expectations. The Grande Luxe Edition, ed. Richard Garnett. Illustrated by Clayton J. Clarke ('Kyd'). London: Merrill and Baker, 1900.
______. Great Expectations. "With 28 Original Plates by Harry Furniss." Volume 14 of the Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book Co., 1910.
Paroissien, David. The Companion to "Great Expectations." Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 2000.
Created 16 February 2007 last updated 17 October 2021