"The Rejected Alms" — twenty-fourth illustration by "Phiz" for "Dombey and Son"

[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> Phiz —> Dombey & Son —> Charles Dickens —> Next]

The Rejected Alms

Phiz (Hablot K. Browne)

11.3 cm by 10.5 cm

Dickens's Dombey and Son, Ch. 34 (Part 11: August 1847), facing p. 380

Click on image to enlarge it.

The original engraving: The Rejected Alms

Image scan 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 in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one. ]

Passage Illustrated

The face that had humbled itself before her, looked on her now with such invincible hatred and defiance; and the hand that had gently touched her arm, was clenched with such a show of evil purpose, as if it would gladly strangle her; that she drew close to her brother for protection.

"That I could speak with you, and not know you! That I could come near you, and not feel what blood was running in your veins, by the tingling of my own!" said Alice, with a menacing gesture.

"What do you mean? What have I done?"

"Done!’ returned the other. ‘You have sat me by your fire; you have given me food and money; you have bestowed your compassion on me! You! whose name I spit upon!"

The old woman, with a malevolence that made her ugliness quite awful, shook her withered hand at the brother and sister in confirmation of her daughter, but plucked her by the skirts again, nevertheless, imploring her to keep the money.

"If I dropped a tear upon your hand, may it wither it up! If I spoke a gentle word in your hearing, may it deafen you! If I touched you with my lips, may the touch be poison to you! A curse upon this roof that gave me shelter! Sorrow and shame upon your head! Ruin upon all belonging to you!"

As she said the words, she threw the money down upon the ground, and spurned it with her foot.

"I tread it in the dust: I wouldn’t take it if it paved my way to Heaven! I would the bleeding foot that brought me here to-day, had rotted off, before it led me to your house!" [Chapter XXXIV, " Another Mother and Daughter," 380]

The Relevant Illustrations of Good Mother Brown and her errant daughter

Left: Harry Furniss's introduction of Good Mrs. Brown and her daughter on a blasted heath, Alice Brown and Her Mother (1910). Left of centre: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s study of the beautiful daughter and the witch-like mother: Mrs. Brown and Alice (1867). Right of centre: Barnard's composite wood-engraving of the daughter's return, "She's come back harder than she went!" cried the mother, looking up in her face, and still holding her knees (1877). Right: Sir John Gilbert's frontispiece for the Sheldon & Co. third volume of the novel (1862): "It's my handsome daughter, living and come back," she screamed again.

Related Material, including Other Illustrated Editions of Dombey and Son

Dombey and Son (homepage)
O. C. Darley's Frontispiece in the New York edition (Vol. 1, 1862)
O. C. Darley's Frontispiece in the New York edition (Vol. 2, 1862)
O. C. Darley's Frontispiece in the New York edition (Vol. 3, 1862)
Sol Eytinge, Junior's 16 Diamond Edition Illustrations (1867)
Fred Barnard's 61 illustrations for the Household Edition (1872)
Groome's illustrations of the Collins Pocket Edition of Dombey and Son (1900, rpt. 1934)
Kyd's five Player's Cigarette Cards, 1910
Harry Furniss's illustrations for the Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910)

Bibliography

Dickens, Charles. Dombey and Son. With illustrations by H. K. Browne. The illustrated library Edition. 2 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, c. 1880.

__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz"). 8 coloured plates. London and Edinburgh: Caxton and Ballantyne, Hanson, 1910.

__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz"). The Clarendon Edition, ed. Alan Horsman. Oxford: Clarendon, 1974.

__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr., and engraved by A. V. S. Anthony. 14 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. III.

__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. 61 wood-engravings. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1877. XV.

_________. Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son: Wholesale, Retail, and for Exportation. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book Company, 1910. IX.

Hammerton, J. A. "Chapter 16: Dombey and Son." The Dickens Picture-Book. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. 18 vols. London: Educational Book Co., 1910. Vol. 17, 294-337.

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.

Lester, Valerie Browne. Ch. 12, "Work, Work, Work." Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004, pp. 128-160.

Steig, Michael. Chapter 4. "Dombey and Son: Iconography of Social and Sexual Satire." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U. P., 1978. 86-112.

Vann, J. Don. Chapter 4."Dombey and Son, twenty parts in nineteen monthly installments, October 1846-April 1848." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: Modern Language Association, 1985, pp. 67-68.

Created 1 July 2016

Last modified 27 January 2021