"Mrs. Leo hunter's Garden Party" — Harry Furniss's nineteenth regular illustration for Dickens's "Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club" (1910)

Mrs. Leo hunter's Garden Party — "Mr. Pickwick," said Mrs. Leo Hunter, "I must make you promise not to stir from my side the whole day. There are hundreds of people here, that I must positively introduce you to." "You are very kind, ma'am," said Mr. Pickwick. "In the first place, here are my little girls; I had almost forgotten them," said Minerva. — Pickwick, p. 207.

A re-interpretation of three earlier Phiz illustrations, one for the serial, a second for the bound volume, and a third for the 1874 British Household Edition. 9.3 cm high by 14.3 cm wide (3 ¾ inches by 5 ⅝ inches) vignetted, in Dickens's The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, Chapter XV, “In which is given a faithful Portraiture of two distinguished Persons; and an accurate description of a Public Breakfast in their House and Grounds; which Public Breakfast leads to the Recognition of an old Acquaintance, and the commencement of another Chapter,” in The Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910) facing II, 209.

Passage Illustrated: Pickwick Celebrated as a Literary Lion

"Mr. Pickwick, ma'am," said a servant, as that gentleman approached the presiding goddess, with his hat in his hand, and the brigand and troubadour on either arm.

"What! Where!" exclaimed Mrs. Leo Hunter, starting up, in an affected rapture of surprise.

"Here," said Mr. Pickwick.

"Is it possible that I have really the gratification of beholding Mr. Pickwick himself!" ejaculated Mrs. Leo Hunter.

"No other, ma'am," replied Mr. Pickwick, bowing very low. "Permit me to introduce my friends — Mr. Tupman — Mr. Winkle — Mr. Snodgrass — to the authoress of 'The Expiring Frog.'"

Very few people but those who have tried it, know what a difficult process it is to bow in green velvet smalls, and a tight jacket, and high-crowned hat; or in blue satin trunks and white silks, or knee-cords and top-boots that were never made for the wearer, and have been fixed upon him without the remotest reference to the comparative dimensions of himself and the suit. Never were such distortions as Mr. Tupman's frame underwent in his efforts to appear easy and graceful — never was such ingenious posturing, as his fancy-dressed friends exhibited.

"Mr. Pickwick," said Mrs. Leo Hunter, "I must make you promise not to stir from my side the whole day. There are hundreds of people here, that I must positively introduce you to."

"You are very kind, ma'am," said Mr. Pickwick.

"In the first place, here are my little girls; I had almost forgotten them," said Minerva. [Chapter XV, “In which is given a faithful Portraiture of two distinguished Persons; and an accurate description of a Public Breakfast in their House and Grounds; which Public Breakfast leads to the Recognition of an old Acquaintance, and the commencement of another Chapter,” 207]

Commentary: Furniss Injects Baroque Energy into the Fancy-Dress Déjeûné

Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s Mrs. Leo Hunter's Party (1867).

Once again, Furniss offers a substantial reinterpretation of a steel-engraving by Hablot Knight Brown, or, rather, two early steel-engravings and a large-scale woodcut. Instead, however, of merely depicting a static scene in the context of an English country garden, Furniss makes the scene far more animated by giving Pickwick centre stage, and placing seven supporting characters behind him: Mrs. Pott (with lyre, left), Mr. Winkle, Mr. Tupman (with exaggerated "bandit" hat held aloft), a florid and jolly Mrs. Hunter as hostess (just right of centre), and two of the Miss Hunters as shepherdesses to the right, "in very juvenile costumes." He gives a sense of the community social event by the dozen costumed, smiling figures in the third row; among these, in a Grecian helmet, is Snodgrass (immediately behind Winkle). Where, then, has Furniss placed the Eatanswill Gazette's editor, Mr. Pott, and the foreign social commentator, Count Smorltork? Although Furniss seems not to have been much concerned with making their presence obvious, Pott may be the sour-faced figure behind and to the right of the beautiful Mrs. Pott, although without a beard, and the German Count may be the Prussian-looking officer to the right and behind Mrs. Hunter. The sense of Baroque energy animates even the smallest figures in the background, which contains almost nothing of the garden setting except two lightly sketched in tree-trunks.

In his satirising of society lady poets and their bad poetry, Dickens modeled Mrs. Leo Hunter (that is, Mrs. "Lion-hunter"), on the Honourable Miss Mary Monckton (1746-1840), afterwards, Lady Cork, "a renowned socialite and conversationalist, whose passion was to throw parties for the most eminent people of her day" (The Annotated Dickens (Vol. I, p. 150). She glories in displaying literary lions and celebrities such as the eminent German travel-writer Count Smorltork and learned society chairman Samuel Pickwick. According to Kathleen Tillotson in the Literary Times Supplement for 22 November 1957,

Dickens based his depiction of the Count on Prince Puckler-Muskau and Professor Friedrich von Raumer, both of whom had recently written books about England after short tours of the country. [Cited in The Annotated Dickens, Vol. I, p. 152]

Scenes at the Garden Party from Other Editions (1836-74)

Left: Phiz's second version of the engraving for the garden-party, Mrs. Leo Hunter's Fancy-Dress Déjeûné (Chapter XV, September 1836). Centre: Phiz's Household Edition woodcut reworks his original 1836 steel engraving as "Permit me to introduce my friends — Mr. Tupman — Mr. Winkle — Mr. Snodgrass &c."/span> (1874). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

Left: Thomas Nast's cartoonish "Come on, Sir!" replied Mr. Pickwick in the American Household Edition (1873). Right: Phiz's original September 1836 steel-engraving for the serial, without caption: Mrs. Leo Hunter's Fancy-Dress Déjeûné. [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

Other artists who illustrated this work, 1836-1910

Scanned image, colour correction, sizing, caption, and commentary by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose, as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image, and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Bibliography

Cohen, Jane Rabb. Charles Dickens and His Original Illustrators. Columbus: Ohio State U. P., 1980.

Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998.

Dickens, Charles. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Robert Seymour, Robert Buss, and Phiz. London: Chapman and Hall, November 1837. With 32 additional illustrations by Thomas Onwhyn (London: E. Grattan, April-November 1837).

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

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

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

Guiliano, Edward, and Philip Collins, eds. The Annotated Dickens.2 vols. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1986. Vol. I.

Created 14 March 2024