Princess Alicia — otherwise known as Initial Letter Vignette "T", first page of text for Part 2 of A Holiday Romance in Ticknor-Fields' Our Young Folks, An Illustrated Magazine For Boys and Girls, Vol. IV (p. 258), March 1868. Wood-engraving, 3.7 cm high by 8.9 cm wide (1 ½ by 3 ½ inches), vignetted. Left: The entire page.
Passage Illustrated: Introducing the Princess Alicia
There was once a king, and he had a queen; and he was the manliest of his sex, and she was the loveliest of hers. The king was, in his private profession, under government. The queen’s father had been a medical man out of town.
They had nineteen children, and were always having more. Seventeen of these children took care of the baby; and Alicia, the eldest, took care of them all. Their ages varied from seven years to seven months.
Let us now resume our story.
One day the king was going to the office, when he stopped at the fishmonger’s to buy a pound and a half of salmon not too near the tail, which the queen (who was a careful housekeeper) had requested him to send home. Mr. Pickles, the fishmonger, said, ‘Certainly, sir; is there any other article? Good-morning.’
The king went on towards the office in a melancholy mood; for quarter-day was such a long way off, and several of the dear children were growing out of their clothes. He had not proceeded far, when Mr. Pickles’s errand-boy came running after him, and said, ‘Sir, you didn’t notice the old lady in our shop.’ [Part II, "Romance. From the Pen of Miss Alice Rainbird," 258]
Commentary: A Proleptic Vignette Anticipates Alicia as a Middle-class "Princess"
Consistently, the effect of both Gilbert's full-page plates and Eytinge's vignettes is proleptic. That is, the reader is shown a scene in anticipation of its being narrated and its importance being explained somewhere later in the text. The difference is that for Gilbert's illustrations the magazine's editors have scrupulously identified the precise textual source, while or Eytinge's vignettes they have not. [Allingham, 38]
These vignettes containing visual designs appropriate to the subject-matter that they serve to introduce were something of a specialty for Our Young Folks, as in Mayne Reid's Among the Ice-Cutters (Vol. III, No. 1, page 1). This and the final initial-letter vignette for A Holiday Romance show Eytinge's imaginative powers flagging in comparison to his first (January) and third (April) miniatures full of action and humour. All four lack the informative captions of Gilbert's full-page wood-cuts.
Even if equally lacking in pictorial interest, the initial vignette [for the March number] captures the mood of 'let's pretend' and 'dress-up' in its depiction of seven-year-old Princess Alicia, shown crowned and berobed rather than in kitchen garb [as in the main plate]. The vignette artist suggests the story's closing scen, the marriage of Alicia to Prince Certainpersonio,, in that the Princess appears to be walking down the aisle while holding up her train. [Allingham, 40]
Other Vignette Plates by Eytinge
- Tinkling preparing to abduct his Bride: Initial-Letter Vignette 'T'
- Captain Boldheart and a Whale: Initial-Letter Vignette 'T'
- Mrs. Orange and Mrs. Lemon: Initial-Letter Vignette 'T'
Scanned image and text 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.]
Bibliography
Allingham, Philip V. "The Original Illustrations for Dickens's A Holiday Romance by John Gilbert, Sol Eytinge, and G. G. White as these appeared in Our Young Folks, An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. IV." Dickensian 92, 1 (Spring 1996): 31-47.
Cunnington, Phillis, and Anne Buck. Children's Costume in England 1300-1900. London: Adams and Charles Black, 1965.
Dickens, Charles. A Holiday Romance in Our Young Folks, An Illustrated Magazine For Boys and Girls, Vol. IV. Boston: Ticknor Fields, January-May, 1868. Rpt. All the Year Round, 1868.
Dickens, Charles. A Holiday Romance and Other Writings for Children. Ed. Gillian Avery. Everyman Dickens. London: J. M. Dent; Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle, 1995.
Kitton, Frederic George. Dickens and His Illustrators: Cruikshank, Seymour, Buss, "Phiz," Cattermole, Leech, Doyle, Stanfield, Maclise, Tenniel, Frank Stone, Landseer, Palmer, Topham, Marcus Stone, and Luke Fildes. Amsterdam: S. Emmering, 1972. Re-print of the London 1899 edition.
Created 19 April 2002
Last modified 29 January 2023