Mark Tapley by J. Clayton Clarke ("Kyd") for the watercolour series (1910): reproduced on John Player cigarette card no. 34: Ninety-two Characters from Dickens: The Old Curiosity Shop. 2 ½ inches high by 1 ¼ inches wide (6.3 cm high by 3.3 cm wide). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
MARK TAPLEY (Martin Chuzzlewit.)
A whimsical, rustic, philosopher (beloved by the “Blue Dragon”) whose one desire is to deservedly obtain credit for being jolly. “I don't believe there ever was a man as could come out so strong under circumstances that would make other men miserable, as I could, if I could only get a chance. But I can't get a chance.” [Verso of Card No. 34]
Left: Mark Tapley copes with every disposition imaginable among the steerage passengers in Barnard's On board the "screw" 1872).
The 1843-44 picaresque novel contains several brilliant comic creations, including the peripheral slatternly sick-room nurse Sarah ("Sairey") Gamp (Card No. 24) and Mark Tapley, the steadfast companion and foil to the story's pallid protagonist, young Martin Chuzzlewit, who does not even merit an appearance in Kyd's fifty-two character illustrations from Dickens. In this Kyd series, dominated by characters from Pickwick (thirteen cards), Oliver Twist (five cards), and The Old Curiosity Shop (nine cards), Kyd designates Mark Tapley by his Christian name, implying that he is not a member of the respectable middle class. Unlike the other significant working-class comic character from this novel, the sickroom nurse Sairey Gamp, Mark makes his appearance relatively early in the nineteen-month serial, in Chapter 5 (monthly instalment No. 2 February 1843). In the original set of serial illustrations, the indefatigibly jolly Sancho Panza figure appears prominently in a number of the steel engravings, beginning with the March 1843 instalment's Mark Begins to be Jolly Under Creditable Circumstances (Chapter 8); he appears thereafter six times, two of these being in the "American" episodes when his determination to prove "jolly" under any trying circumstance is important in the moral education of the protagonist, most significantly at the offices of the scurrilous New York Rowdy Journal when he becomes Dickens's vehicle for communicating anti-slavery sentiments in the July 1843 instalment's Mr. Tapley succeeds in finding a jolly subject for contemplation (Chapter 17), and when the devoted companion nurses young Martin back to health in the malarial-infested Mississippi swamp of "Eden" in the September 1843 illustration The Thriving City of Eden as it Appeared in Fact (Chapter 23).
Right: Mark Tapley seems more than equal to the vicissitudes of the Mississippi settlement in the malarial swamp in Furniss's Eden! (1910).
Although Mark is a secondary character in the novel's rambling plot, the stout-hearted Cockney ostler who bears up with good humour under life's vicissitudes and eventually marries the proprietress of the Green Dragon has a less prominent role in the new series of illustrations in the Chapman and Hall re-issue of the novel in the Household Edition (1872). The project's lead illustrator, Fred Barnard, recognizing Mark's importance as a foil to hypocritical characters, makes him a significant presence in the new illustrations in a manner which is both consistent with Phiz's original conception and which makes Mark more than a mere comic servant of Plautan comedy. In Barnard's illustrations, a more dashing Mark appears early in the sequence in He turned a whimsical face and a very merry pair of blue eyes on Mr. Pinch (Chapter 5), and thereafter three times. Kyd's interpretation has much in common with both Phiz's and Barnard's. The 1867 Diamond Edition volume, which Kyd is not likely to have seen, contains a paired character study entitled Martin Chuzzlewit and Mark Tapley, in which Ticknor Fields' house illustrator, Sol Eytinge, Junior, provides the lineaments of the healthy, cheerful Mark, but adds the full sideburns and a bow-tie, in contrast to the malaria-ravaged visage of young Martin outside their ramshackle cabin on the banks of the Mississippi. Assimilating all of these, Kyd's interpretation is closer to the original than the dapper figure in Felix Octavius Carr Darley's frontispiece, "Jolly sort of lodgings," said Mark (1863), in which his smart waistcoat and riding-crop suggest a "horsey" and sporting background, in contrast to Martin's professional dress and pen which make him look like young Charles Dickens.
Relevant Illustrations of the Indefatigbly Jolly Mark, 1843-1910
Left: Hablot Knight Browne's Mark Begins to be Jolly Under Creditable Circumstances (March 1843). Centre: Fred Barnard's "horsey" Mark in conversation with architectural apprentice Tom Pinch just outside the Wiltshire village in Chapter V, He turned a whimsical face and a very merry pair of blue eyes on Mr. Pinch. (1872). Right: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s Martin Chuzzlewit and Mark Tapley (1867). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Left: F. O. C. Darley's 1863 frontispiece for volume two, "Jolly sort of lodgings", alluding to Mark's deciding to join young Martin on the voyage to America. Centre: Furniss's study of the inveterately jolly hostler, Mark Tapley, depicting Mark's cheerfully waving good-bye to all he has known. Right: Furniss's introduction of jolly Mark and pensive Tom, Mark Tapley and Tom Pinch (1910). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Artists Who Worked on Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-1844)
- Hablot Knight Browne (40 steel engravings)
- Felix Octavius Carr Darley (3 lithographs)
- Sol Eytinge, Jr. (15 wood engravings)
- Fred Barnard (59 wood engravings)
- Harry Furniss (29 lithographs plus engraved title)
- Harold Copping (3 chromolithographs selected)
Scanned images and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned them and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography: Martin Chuzzlewit
Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. New York and Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1990.
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[?].
Dickens, Charles. The Dickens Souvenir Book. Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1871-1880. The copy of The Dickens Souvenir Book from which these pictures were scanned is in the collection of the Main Library of The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B. C.
Dickens, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, illustrated by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, 1844.
Dickens, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. 14 vols. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867. Vol. II.
Dickens, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, illustrated by Fred Barnard. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1872. Vol. II.
Dickens, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. VII.
Hammerton, J. A. "XVI. Martin Chuzzlewit." The Dickens Picture-Book. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. XVI: 266-293.
Vann, J. Don. "Martin Chuzzlewit, . . . January 1843 — July 1844." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: MLA, 1985. 66-67.
Created 10 January 2015
Last updated 18 July 2025