"An' she just puts her dear arms about my neck " by Harry Furniss — illustration for Lewis Carroll’s “Sylvie and Bruno”

[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> Harry Furniss —> Sylvia and Bruno —> Next]

An' she just puts her dear arms about my neck

Harry Furniss, artist

Swain, engraver

1893

Illustration for Lewis Carroll’s Sylvie and Bruno Concluded, 350

Source: Hathi Digital Library Trust version of a copy in the Pennsylvania State University Library.

[Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Scanned image and text by Ray Dyer.

[You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the Hathi Digital Library Trust and the Pennsylvania State University Library and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Passage Illustrated

“‘An' she just puts her dear arms about my neck and she kisses me on t' cheek an' may God in Heaven bless her!’ And here the poor old man broke down entirely, and could say no more.”

Commentary

This title is an improvement of title over Carroll’s original, which was the more negative “A Cannot Shak’ Hands Wi’ Thee” (chapter 22, “The Banquet,” 350). The sentimentalism of Carroll and Furniss was entirely acceptable to Victorian taste, as shown by a survey of such contemporary popular literature as the weekly Girl’s Own Paper through 1888-1889, profusely illustrated by Furniss’s peers, such as Frank Dicksee, J. Faed, Miles Birket Foster, W. J. Hennessy, W. J. Morgan, J. Bernard Partridge, James Sant R. A., Marcus Stone, Richard Taylor; the women Helen Marion Burnside, Mary Gow, Lizzie Lawson, Marcella Lawson and many others. — Ray Dyer

Bibliography

Carroll, Lewis. The Story of Sylvie and Bruno. London: Macmillan & Co., 1922. Hathi Digital Library Trust version of a copy in the University of North Carolina Library. Web. 20 September 2016.

Created 20 September 2016

Last modified 1 February 2020