“‘Tom,’ said the old gentleman, ‘the widow’s a fine woman — remarkably fine woman — eh, Tom?’ — Thomas Onwhyn's tenth extra illustration for Charles Dickens's "The Pickwick Club" (30 June 1837)

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“‘Tom,’ said the old gentleman, ‘the widow’s a fine woman — remarkably fine woman — eh, Tom?’

Thomas Onwhyn ["Sam Weller del" for delineavit, Latin]

steel engraving

13.7 cm high by 11.1 cm wide (4 ⅛ by 4 ⅜ inches), vignetted

June 30, 1837 (third instalment)

Charles Dickens's The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, Chapter XIV, “Comprising A Brief Description of the Company at The Peacock Assembled; and A Tale told by a Bagman.” (August 1836), facing page 141.

[Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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Passage Illustrated: The Animated Chair Gives Tom Good Advice

‘Tom gazed at the chair; and, suddenly as he looked at it, a most extraordinary change seemed to come over it. The carving of the back gradually assumed the lineaments and expression of an old, shrivelled human face; the damask cushion became an antique, flapped waistcoat; the round knobs grew into a couple of feet, encased in red cloth slippers; and the whole chair looked like a very ugly old man, of the previous century, with his arms akimbo. Tom sat up in bed, and rubbed his eyes to dispel the illusion. No. The chair was an ugly old gentleman; and what was more, he was winking at Tom Smart.

‘Tom was naturally a headlong, careless sort of dog, and he had had five tumblers of hot punch into the bargain; so, although he was a little startled at first, he began to grow rather indignant when he saw the old gentleman winking and leering at him with such an impudent air. At length he resolved that he wouldn’t stand it; and as the old face still kept winking away as fast as ever, Tom said, in a very angry tone —

‘“What the devil are you winking at me for?”

‘“Because I like it, Tom Smart,” said the chair; or the old gentleman, whichever you like to call him. He stopped winking though, when Tom spoke, and began grinning like a superannuated monkey.

‘“How do you know my name, old nut-cracker face?” inquired Tom Smart, rather staggered; though he pretended to carry it off so well.

‘“Come, come, Tom,” said the old gentleman, “that’s not the way to address solid Spanish mahogany. Damme, you couldn’t treat me with less respect if I was veneered.” When the old gentleman said this, he looked so fierce that Tom began to grow frightened. . . . .

‘“Never mind that,” said the old gentleman; “you’re much too fond of punch, Tom.”

‘Tom Smart was just on the point of protesting that he hadn’t tasted a drop since his last birthday, but when his eye encountered that of the old gentleman he looked so knowing that Tom blushed, and was silent.

‘“Tom,” said the old gentleman, “the widow’s a fine woman — remarkably fine woman — eh, Tom?” Here the old fellow screwed up his eyes, cocked up one of his wasted little legs, and looked altogether so unpleasantly amorous, that Tom was quite disgusted with the levity of his behaviour — at his time of life, too! [Chapter XIV, “Comprising A Brief Description of the Company at The Peacock Assembled; and A Tale told by a Bagman,” 141]

Commentary: A Continuation of the Humorous the Style of Robert Seymour and Phiz in "The Bagman's Tale"

“‘Tom,’ said the old gentleman, ‘the widow’s a fine woman — remarkably fine woman — eh, Tom?’ Page 141.

For whatever reason, the original illustrators of the serial novel only occasionally provided pictorial realisations of the various interpolated tales, namely for "The Dying Clown," "The Last Visit of Heyling to the Old Man," "The Goblin and the Sexton," and "The Ghostly Passengers in the Ghost of a Mail." Although the original serial did not include a plate complementing the humorous tale of the supernatural, Thomas Nast and Phiz in the American and British Household Editions have risen to the challenge — and Onwhyn has provided two.

Although Onwhyn manages to realise the anthropomorphic chair with considerable elan and charm, he seems little interested in the protagonist of the whimsical story, the bagman Tom Smart, whom Onwhyn represents as merely an undistinguished face above the bedcovers, in contrast to the more sympathetic renderings of the travelling salesman by Thomas Nast (1873) and Phiz in the Household Edition (1874). Like the ghost of Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol six years later, the spirit has appeared to intervene in the affairs of the living — not to save the protagonist from himself, but to prevent the comely widow who owns the inn from contracting a bigamous marriage with the tall man whom Tom has seen wooing her earlier in the bar.

Parallel Scenes in the American and English Versions of the Household Edition (1873-74)

Left: Nast's American Household composite woodblock engraving A most extraordinary change seemed to come over it (1873). Right: Phiz's Household Edition woodcut The chair was an ugly old gentleman; and what as more, he was winking at Tom Smart (1874). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

Bibliography

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).

Titley, Graham D. C. "Thomas Onwhyn: a Life in Illustration (1811-1886)." Pearl. University of Plymouth (2018-07-12).

Created 9 February 2024