The Stepping-Stones (December 1858) by Phiz (Hablot K. Browne), thirty-fifth serial illustration and fourteenth dark plate for Charles Lever's Davenport Dunn: A Man of Our Time, Part 18 (December 1858), Chapter LXVI, "Annesley Beecher in a New Part," facing page 562. As darkness falls on their German retreat, Annesley Beecher and Lizzy Davis conclude their romantic ramble on the riverbank. When her father pages them, they return to the inn for dinner at 7:00 P. M., re-crossing the stream by convenient stepping-stones — with Annesley's marriage proposal incomplete.
Bibliographical Note
This appeared as the thirty-fifth serial illustration for Charles Lever's Davenport Dunn: A Man of Our Time, steel-plate etching; 4 by 6 ¾ inches (10 cm high by 17.3 cm wide), framed. The story was originally serialised by Chapman and Hall in monthly parts, from July 1857 through April 1859. The thirty-seventh and thirty-eighth illustrations in the volume initially appeared in the same order at the very beginning of the eighteenth monthly instalment, which went on sale on 1 December 1858. This number included Chapters LXV through LXVII, and ran from page 545 through 576 to make up the 32-page instalment.
Passage Illustrated: The Desultory Progress of Annesley Beecher's Romance
“I meant that you bore with great good-humor from me what you might, if so disposed, have fairly enough resented as an impertinence. What do I, what could I, know of that play-world of which you spoke? How gentlemen and men of fashion regard these things must needs be mysteries to me; I only wished to imply that you might make some better use of your faculties, and that knowledge of life you possess, than in conning over a betting-book or the Racing Calendar.”
“So I mean to do. That's exactly what I'm planning.”
“Here's the soup cooling and the sherry getting hot,” cried Grog, as he shouted from the window of the little inn, and waved his napkin to attract their notice.
“There's papa making a signal to us,” said Lizzy; “did you suspect it was so late?”
“Seven o'clock, by Jove!” cried Beecher, as he gave her his hand to cross the stepping-stones. “What a fuss he 'll make about our keeping the dinner back!” [Chapter LXVI. "Annesley Beecher in a New Part," page 562]
Commentary: An Atmospheric Woodland Scene
Here Phiz has employed the dark plate technique not merely to emphasize the nocturnal setting, but to suggest the atmospheric backdrop for the dialogue between Annesley Beecher and Lizzy Davis, which concludes abruptly with Annesley's marriage proposal incomplete.
As darkness falls on their German retreat, Annesley Beecher and Lizzy Davis conclude their romantic ramble on the riverbank. Paged by Grog, they return to the inn for dinner at 7:00 P. M. by crossing the river, which Annesley achieves with greater ease than he will renouncing his existence as a blade of the turf. Phiz's illustration underscores the romantic isolation of Grog's hidaway at the little village of Holbach (presumably Großholbach in Westerwald, on the banks of the Holbach River), and complements the dialogue of the lovers since Lever provides some description of the physical setting much earlier in the chapter:
It was a calm, tame monotony; each day so precisely like its predecessor that it was often hard to remember how the week stole on. The same landscape, with almost the same effects of sun and shadow, stretched daily before their eyes; the same gushing water foamed and fretted; the same weeds bent their heads to the flood; the self-same throbbing sounds of busy mills mingled with the rushing streams; the very clouds, as they dragged themselves lazily up the mountain side, and then broke into fragments on the summit, seemed the same. . . . [558]
Phiz has made the figures of Lizzy Davis and Annesley Beecher consistent with their appearances in previous illustrations such as Mr. Beecher (August 1857, Chapter 4) and The Princess (November 1857, Chapter 17).
Working methods
- Dark Plate Etchings for Davenport Dunn
- Dark Plate Etchings for Bleak House
- Dark Plate Etchings for Mervyn Clitheroe
- "Phiz" — artist, wood-engraver, etcher, and printer
- Etching, Wood-engraving, or Lithography in Phiz's Illustrations for A Tale of Two Cities?
- Phiz: "A Good Hand at a Horse" — A Gallery and Brief Overview of Phiz's Illustrations of Horses for Defoe, Dickens, Lever, and Ainsworth (1836-64)
Scanned image by Simon Cooke; 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.] Click on the image to enlarge it.
Bibliography
Lever, Charles. Davenport Dunn: A Man of Our Day. Illustrated by "Phiz" (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, 1859.
Lever, Charles. Davenport Dunn: The Man of The Day. Illustrated by "Phiz" (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, December 1858 (Part XVIII).
Last modified 3 August 2019