[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> Harry Furniss —> Our Mutual Friend —> Charles Dickens —> Next]
“Miss Wilfer signs the Agreement”
Harry Furniss
1910
14 cm x 9.1 cm, or 5 ½ by 3 ⅝ inches, vignetted
Dickens's Our Mutual Friend, The Charles Dickens Library Edition, for Book 1, Chapter IV, “The R. Wilfer Family,” facing XV, 48.
It came to Bella's turn to sign. Her pretty figure leant down over the paper, and she said, "Where am I to go, pa? Here, in this corner?" — Our Mutual, p. 41.
[Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
When the agreement was ready in duplicate (the landlord having worked at it like some cherubic scribe, in what is conventionally called a doubtful, which means a not at all doubtful, Old Master), it was signed by the contracting parties, Bella looking on as scornful witness. The contracting parties were R. Wilfer, and John Rokesmith, Esquire.
When it came to Bella’s turn to sign her name, Mr. Rokesmith, who was standing, as he had sat, with a hesitating hand upon the table, looked at her stealthily, but narrowly. He looked at the pretty figure bending down over the paper and saying, ‘Where am I to go, pa? Here, in this corner?’ He looked at the beautiful brown hair, shading the coquettish face; he looked at the free dash of the signature, which was a bold one for a woman’s; and then they looked at one another. [Book One, “The Cup and the Lip”; Ch. IV, “The R. Wilfer Family,” 41]
Following the lead of Dickens's original serial illustrator, Marcus Stone, Furniss realizes Bella's being absorbed in the task of signing without giving any details about either the setting or the other figures in the scene. Since Bella's fiancé (at least on paper, and arranged, sight unseen) John Harmon has just been reported drowned on his way back to England, Bella is technically a widow: hence, she is dressed in mourning. In the illustration, she is called upon to witness the rental agreement between her father, “The Cherub,” and the handsome young stranger, John Rokesmith, who is taking rooms with the R. Wilfer family. Little does she or the reader know that "John Rokesmith" is the assumed alias of John Harmon. What distinguishes Furniss's treatment from Stone's is style: the 1864 engraving is thoroughly realistic, the later version somewhat caricatural and impressionistic.
Left: Marcus Stone's May 1864 (Part 1) serial illustration of Bella's acquiescing in signing John Rokesmith's rental contract: Witnessing the Agreement.Centre: The Diamond Edition's portrait of Bella, her mother, and George Sampson (1867), for Book IV, Chapter 5. Right: James Mahoney's Household Edition composite woodblock illustration of the signing of the rental agreement: “When it came to Bella's turn to sign her name, Mr. Rokesmith, who was standing, as he had sat, with a hesitating hand upon the table, looked at her stealthily but narrowly.” (1875). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. Oxford and New York: Oxford U. P., 1988.
Brigden, C. A. T. "No. 17. Silas Wegg." The Characters from Charles Dickens as depicted by Kyd. Rochester, Kent: John Hallewell, 1978.
The Characters of Charles Dickens Pourtrayed in a Series of Original Water Colour Sketches by “Kyd.” London, Paris, and New York: Raphael Tuck & Sons, 1898[?].
Cordery, Gareth, and Joseph S. Meisel, eds. The Humours of Parliament: Harry Furniss's View of Late-Victorian Culture. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2014. [Review by Françoise Baillet]
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. Our Mutual Friend. Illustrated by Marcus Stone [40 composite wood-block engravings]. Volume 14 of the Authentic Edition of the Works of Charles Dickens. London: Chapman and Hall; New York: Charles Scribners' Sons, 1901 [based on the original nineteen-month serial and the two-volume edition of 1865].
Dickens, Charles. Our Mutual Friend. Frontispieces by Felix Octavius Carr Darley and Sir John Gilbert. The Household Edition. 55 vols. New York: Sheldon & Co., 1863. 4 vols.
Dickens, Charles. Our Mutual Friend. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. 14 vols.
Dickens, Charles. Our Mutual Friend. Illustrated by James Mahoney. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1875. Volume IX.
Dickens, Charles. Our Mutual Friend. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. XV.
Hammerton, J. A. "Chapter 21: The Other Novels." The Dickens Picture-Book. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. 18 vols. London: Educational Book Co., 1910. Vol. XVII. Pp. 441-442.
Vann, J. Don. "Our Mutual Friend, twenty parts in nineteen monthly instalments, May 1864—November 1865." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: The Modern Language Association, 1985, 74.
Created 29 July 2025