"Tony Weller" — Harry Furniss's twety-fourth illustration for Dickens's "Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club" (1910)

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Tony Weller

Harry Furniss

1910

15 cm x 9.3 cm, vignetted

Dickens's Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, The Charles Dickens Library Edition, facing II, 289.

[Click on image to enlarge it.]

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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Passage Illustrated: Tony Weller Introduced

"Who's that, Sam?" inquired Mr. Pickwick.

"Why, I wouldn’t ha’ believed it, Sir," replied Mr. Weller, with astonished eyes. "It's the old ‘un."

"Old one," said Mr. Pickwick. "What old one?"

"My father, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller. ‘How are you, my ancient?’ And with this beautiful ebullition of filial affection, Mr. Weller made room on the seat beside him, for the stout man, who advanced pipe in mouth and pot in hand, to greet him.

"Wy, Sammy," said the father, ‘I ha’n’t seen you, for two year and better."

"Nor more you have, old codger," replied the son. "How’s mother-in-law?" [Chapter XX, Showing How Dodson and Fogg were Men of Business, and their Clerks Men of Pleasure; and How an Affecting Interview took place between Mr. Weller and his Long-lost Parent; showing also what choice spirits assembled at The Magpie and Stump, and what a Capital Chapter the Next One will be," page 276]

Commentary

Having scored a hit with the reading public in instalment five by introducing Sam Weller, Dickens introduced a second Weller, the jolly coachman Tony, supposedly a "long lost" parent with whom his son has fallen out of touch. Although Furniss attaches no particular text in his caption for the illustration, he and series editor J. A. Hammerton have situated it within Chapter 21, at a point when, a few pages earlier, Dickens introduces the bluff coach-driver and publican.

Although readers on both sides of the Atlantic welcomed the initial appearance of the steet-wise Cockney, Sam Weller, in the text of the novel as reiterated in Phiz's serial illustration for July 1836, the arrival of his father, Tony Weller, also a fast favourite with readers, has not been the subject of later illustrations such as those in the Diamond and Household Editions. Sam's father, a bluff coachman, enters the story comparatively late, as a mere adjunct to Sam's composing a Valentine for a pretty housemaid. Moreover, in the original Phiz illustration The Valentine (March 1837), pipe-smoking Tony in his capacious waistcoat and coachman's hat and coat is a mere caricature rather than, as in Darley's photogravure, an individualized character. Thomas Nast in the American Household Edition, however, fails to render Tony in such a way that readers will identify with him. In contrast, Harry Furniss, despite the caricaturing tendencies evident in the enormous stomach and great-coat, at least makes Tony a figure of fun.

In the original serial program of illustration by Seymour and Phiz — as befits the episodic structure of a picaresque novel — Tony Weller appears only four times, and these are all concentrated in the second half of the story, between March and November 1837 in the original monthly instalments. Subsequent generations of readers, too, relished his rough humour and comic observations. Not surprisingly, in both Britain and America his likeness appeared in busts, mugs, and on the covers of commercial products, as a virtual endorsement of a product as redolent of the jolly Regency era of pre-railway London and the Home Counties. Something of the "advertising poster" Tony Weller is reflected Furniss's placing an sign for Guiness on the mantlepiece immediately beside Tony's neckless head. Of Furniss's forty-three full-page illustrations for this volume, Tony Weller appears in miniature in the first two, and then twice at the conclusion of the sequence, in Stiggins Punished by Old Weller and Solomon Pell and his Clients.

Other artists who illustrated this work, 1836-1910

Relevant Chapman & Hall (1836), Diamond Edition (1867), and Children's Book (1924) illustrations

Left: Phiz's "The Valentine". Centre: Hablot Knight Browne's With a countenance greatly mollified by the softening influence of tobacco, requested him to "fire away.". Centre: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s "Old Weller and The Coachmen" (1867). Right: Harrold Copping's heart-warming image of the Wellers for the modern era, Sam Weller and His Father (1924). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

Darley's, Nast's, and Kyd's Conceptions of Tony Weller, 1888-1910

Left: Felix Octavius Carr Darley's beautifully engraved study for his collection of characters from Dickens, Tony Weller (1888); centre: Kyd's Player's Cigartte Card No. 18: Tony Weller (1910); right: Kyd's second study of the jolly coachman, Mr. Weller, Senior (1910). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

Phiz's depiction of Tony Weller in "The Valentine" sequence in the British Household Edition (1874) and Nast's introduction of Tony Weller in the American (1873)

Phiz revises his approach to the figure of Tony Weller, making him more natural and less of a caricature in With a countenance greatly mollified by the softening influence of tobacco, requested him to "fire away," page 225, Chapter XXXIII.

Nast has so revised the figure of Tony Weller that Sam's father is mere pasteboard, making him more a caricature and less a character in "She's been gettin' rayther in the Methodistical order lately, Sammy," page 121, Chapter XXII.

Bibliography

Clarke, Clayton J. ('Kyd'). The Characters of Charles Dickens portrayed in a series of original watercolours by "Kyd." London, Paris, and New York: Raphael Tuck & Sons, n. d.

Clarke, Clayton J. ('Kyd'). "Sam Weller." John Player Cigarette Cards. Nottingham, 1910. No. 14.

Darley, Felix Octavius Carr. Character Sketches from Dickens. Philadelphia: Porter and Coates, 1888.

Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Checkmark and Facts On File, 1999.

Dickens, Charles. Pickwick Papers. Illustrated by Robert Seymour and Hablot Knight Browne. London: Chapman & Hall, 1836-37.

_____. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Frontispieces by Felix Octavius Carr Darley and Sir John Gilbert. The Household Edition. 55 vols. New York: Sheldon & Co., 1863. 4 vols.

_____. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. 14 vols.

_____. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Thomas Nast. The Household Edition. 16 vols. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1873. Vol. 4.

_____. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ('Phiz'). The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1874. Vol. 5.

_____. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. 2.

Matz, B. W., and Kate Perugini; illustrated by Harold Copping. Character Sketches from Dickens. London: Raphael Tuck, 1924.

Vann, J. Don. Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: The Modern Language Association, 1985.

Created 1 July 2019

Last modified 5 February 2020