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The Great Winglebury Duel
Harry Furniss
1910
13.5 cm x 9.5 cm, vignetted
Dickens's Sketches by Boz, The Charles Dickens Library Edition, "Tales," Chapter 8, "The Great Winglebury Duel," facing I, 400.
[Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
"You'd better be quiet, young feller," remarked the boots, going through a threatening piece of pantomime with the stick.
"Or mad!" said Mr. Trott, rather alarmed. "Leave the room!" shouted Trott, ringing the bell violently: for he began to be alarmed on a new score.
"Leave that 'ere bell alone, you wretched loo-nattic!" said the boots, suddenly forcing the unfortunate Trott back into his chair, and brandishing the stick aloft. "Be quiet, you miserable object, and don't let everybody know there's a madman in the house."
"He is a madman! He is a madman!" exclaimed the terrified Mr. Trott, gazing on the one eye of the red-headed boots with a look of abject horror.
"Madman!" replied the boots — "dam'me, I think he is a madman with a vengeance! Listen to me, you unfort'nate. Ah! would you?" — [a slight tap on the head with the large stick, as Mr. Trott made another move towards the bell-handle] "I caught you there! did I?"
"Spare my life!" exclaimed Trott, raising his hands imploringly.
"I don't want your life," replied the boots, disdainfully, "though I think it 'ud be a charity if somebody took it."
"No, no, it wouldn't," interrupted poor Mr. Trott, hurriedly, "no, no, it wouldn’t! I — I —'d rather keep it!"
"O werry well," said the boots: "that's a mere matter of taste — ev'ry one to his liking. Hows'ever, all I've got to say is this here: You sit quietly down in that chair, and I'll sit hoppersite you here, and if you keep quiet and don't stir, I won't damage you; but, if you move hand or foot till half-past twelve o'clock, I shall alter the expression of your countenance so completely, that the next time you look in the glass you’ll ask vether you're gone out of town, and ven you’re likely to come back again. So sit down."
"I will — I will," responded the victim of mistakes; and down sat Mr. Trott and down sat the boots too, exactly opposite him, with the stick ready for immediate action in case of emergency. ["Tales," Chapter 8, "The Great Winglebury Duel," 404]
Extended caption adapted from the text: "If you keep quiet and don't stir, I won’t damage you; but, if you move hand or foot till half-past twelve o'clock, I shall alter the expression of your countenance so completely, that the next time you look in the glass you'll ask vether you’re gone out of town, and ven you're likely to come back again. So sit down." — Sketches by Boz, 404.
Precisely the same scene is realised by George Cruikshank (1839), Sol Eytinge, Junior (1867), and Harry Furniss (1910) in The Great Winglebury Duel. All four visual interpretations of the scene occur in Trott's room at the Winglebury Arms. Whereas Eytinge's version shows a sour-faced boots's raising his cane and Trott asking to be spared, Cruikshank's is much more static, as the boots (looking very much like the wild-eyed London cabbie in The Last Cab-Driver) merely stares malevolently at the surprised young gentleman, sitting next to a nicely appointed table with fruit, a wine decanter, and a small glass of wine (presumably, Madeira, mentioned earlier) poured. Since these details are consistent with Eytinge's 1867 wood-engraving (which also has a landscape painting on the wall behind Alexander Trott), it is likely derived from Cruikshank's illustration.
The provenance of the Barnard interpretation and its connection to the 1836 original are not so obvious, as his "upper-boots," not seated as in the Cruikshank engraving, and now holding a countryman's walking-stick aloft, is a much more dynamic figure as he attempts to grab the terrified young gentleman, cowering in his armchair. The action of the 1876 illustration is intensified by the vigorous crosshatching that has replaced the patterned carpet in the Cruikshank copper-engraving, and the lightness with which Barnard has sketched in the bell-pull and painting in the backdrop brings the eye forward, as if Barnard is making use of the photographic effect of blurring the background in order to emphasize figures in the foreground. The Furniss illustration of thirty-five years later is much more a caricature of both the bolt-upright young gentleman and thoughtful, determined boots, holding his fur cap (mentioned upon his entering Trott's room) on his knee as he menaces Trott with his heavy-headed walking-stick to keep him seated and compliant. A clever touch is the pair of small pictures above the boots which suggest a duel with swords, although Horace Hunter's note implies that the duel at Stiffun's Acre will be fought with pistols.
Left: Cruikshank's original, rather static depiction of Alexander Trott and his menacing attendant, The Winglebury Duel. Right: Barnard's depiction of the enraged boots, a former London cabbie, and the terrified Trott, "Leave that 'ere bell alone, you wretched loo-nattic!" said the boots, suddenly forcing the unfortunate Trott back into his chair, and brandishing the stick aloft.
Above: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s duel character study of the one-eyed boots and the terrified young traveller at the Winglebury Arms, room no. 19, The Great Winglebury Duel. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Dickens, Charles. "The Great Winglebury Duel," Chapter 8 in "Tales," Sketches by Boz. Illustrated by George Cruikshank. London: Chapman and Hall, 1839; rpt., 1890, 305-18.
_____. "The Great Winglebury Duel," Chapter 8 in "Tales," Christmas Books and Sketches by Boz, Illustrative of Every-day Life and Every-day People. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. Boston: James R. Osgood, 1875 [rpt. of 1867 Ticknor & Fields edition], 449-59.
_____. "The Great Winglebury Duel," Chapter 8 in "Tales," Sketches by Boz. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. The Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1876. 194-202.
_____. "The Great Winglebury Duel," Chapter 8 in "Tales," Sketches by Boz. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book Company, 1910. Vol. 1, 391-408.
Hammerton, J. A. The Dickens Picture-Book: A Record of the Dickens Illustrators. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. 17.
Hawksley, Lucinda Dickens. Chapter 3, "Sketches by Boz." Dickens Bicentenary 1812-2012: Charles Dickens. San Rafael, California: Insight, 2011, 12-15.
Schlicke, Paul. "Sketches by Boz.Oxford Reader's Companion to Dickens. Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1999, 530-35.
Created 29 May 2017
Last modified 10 February 2020