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Passage Illustrated

"Yes, sir," says Mr. Vholes, gently shaking his head and rapping the hollow desk, with a sound as if ashes were falling on ashes, and dust on dust, "a rock. That's something. You are separately represented, and no longer hidden and lost in the interests of others. That's something. The suit does not sleep; we wake it up, we air it, we walk it about. That's something. It's not all Jarndyce, in fact as well as in name. That's something. Nobody has it all his own way now, sir. And That's something, surely."

Richard, his face flushing suddenly, strikes the desk with his clenched hand.

"Mr. Vholes! If any man had told me when I first went to John Jarndyce's house that he was anything but the disinterested friend he seemed — that he was what he has gradually turned out to be — I could have found no words strong enough to repel the slander; I could not have defended him too ardently. So little did I know of the world! Whereas now I do declare to you that he becomes to me the embodiment of the suit; that in place of its being an abstraction, it is John Jarndyce; that the more I suffer, the more indignant I am with him; that every new delay and every new disappointment is only a new injury from John Jarndyce's hand."

"No, no," says Vholes. "Don't say so. We ought to have patience, all of us. Besides, I never disparage, sir. I never disparage." [Chapter XXXIX, "Attorney and Client," 557]

Commentary: Vholes as the Most Scurrilous of Dickens's Lawyers

Although Dickens does not disparage the intellectual capacity of such lawyers as Tulkinghorn in Bleak House, Jaggers in Great Expectations, and Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities, he is often critical in his portraits of the members of the legal profession (whether barristers or solicitors) in Great Britain. Among his more unflattering portraits are Stryver in TTC and Vholes in BH. Some stories such as David Copperfield feature multiple lawyers, but very rarely does a member of the profession receive unalloyed praise from the writer who as a young man worked in law offices and in 1829 became a court reporter for the Court of Chancery. From the first  novel he published, The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, he was highly critical of lawyers such as those two shady operators in the Bardell v. Pickwick breach-of-promise-of-marriage action, Dodson and Fogg, and that shrewd master of realpolitik, the solicitor Mr. Perker. Of the professional cavalcade in his dozen novels, however, attorney Vohles stands out — as the most scurrilous, deceitful, and money-grubbing of Dickens's many lawyers — and certainly one of the most sanctimonious.  Even the names "Vohles," "Jaggers," and "Stryver" are hardly suggestive of strong authorial admiration. Dickens introduces Richard Carstone's solicitor in the matter of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce memorably in chapter 37.

Other​ Illustrations​ of Attorney Vholes and His Clients, 1853-1910

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Left: The initial serial depiction of the lawyer Vholes: Attorney and Client: Fortitude and Impatience (Chapter 39, "Attorney and Client," March 1853). Centre: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s dual portrait of a different pairing: Mr. Woodcourt and Vholes (1867). Right: Fred Barnard's version of the lawyer: "Miss Summerson," said Mr. Vholes, very slowly rubbing his gloved hands . . . ." This was an ill-advised marriage of Mr. C.'s." (1873).

Related Material, including Other Illustrated Editions of Bleak House

• Bleak House (homepage)
• Phiz's Illustrations for Bleak House (March 1852 - September 1853)
• Sir John Gilbert's Frontispiece in the New York edition (Vol. 1, 1863)
• O. C. Darley's Frontispiece in the New York edition (Vol. 2, 1863)
• O. C. Darley's Frontispiece in the New York edition (Vol. 3, 1863)
• O. C. Darley's Frontispiece in the New York edition (Vol. 4, 1863)
• Sol Eytinge, Junior's 16 Diamond Edition Illustrations (1867)
• Fred Barnard's 62 illustrations for the Household Edition (1873)
• Kyd's five Player's Cigarette Cards, 1910

Bibliography

Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. New York and Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1990.

"Bleak House — Sixty-one Illustrations by Fred Barnard." Scenes and Characters from the Works of Charles Dickens, Being Eight Hundred and Sixty-six Drawings by Fred Barnard, Gordon Thomson, Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz), J. McL. Ralston, J. Mahoney, H. French, Charles Green, E. G. Dalziel, A. B. Frost, F. A. Fraser, and Sir Luke Fildes. London: Chapman and Hall, 1907.

The Characters of Charles Dickens pourtrayed in a series of original watercolours by "Kyd." London, Paris, and New York: Raphael Tuck & Sons, n. d.

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: Facts On File, 1998.

Dickens, Charles. Bleak House. Illustrated by F. O. C. Darley and John Gilbert. The Works of Charles Dickens. The Household Edition. New York: Sheldon and Company, 1863. Vols. 1-4.

_______. Bleak House. Illustrated by Fred Barnard [61 composite wood-block engravings]. The Works of Charles Dickens. The Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1875.

_______. Bleak House. Illustrated by Harry Furniss [28 original lithographs]. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. Vol. 11.​ London: Educational Book, 1910.

Hammerton, J. A. "Chapter 18: Bleak House." The Dickens Picture-Book. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book, 1910. XVII. 366-97.

Kyd [Clayton J. Clarke]. Characters from Dickens. Nottingham: John Player & Sons, 1910.

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

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Created 20 March 2021