"The Midshipman is boarded by the enemy" — twenty-seventh illustration by "Phiz" for "Dombey and Son" (January 1848)

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The Midshipman is boarded by the enemy

Phiz (Hablot K. Browne)

12 cm by 11 cm

Dickens's Dombey and Son, Ch. 49 (Part 16: January 1848), facing p. 142, vol. 2.

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Passage Illustrated: Mrs. MaxStinger terrifies both retired sailors in the back-parlour

And now a surprise occurred, so overwhelming and terrific that Captain Cuttle, unsupported by the presence of Bunsby, must have sunk beneath it, and been a lost man from that fatal hour.

How the Captain, even in the satisfaction of admitting such a guest, could have only shut the door, and not locked it, of which negligence he was undoubtedly guilty, is one of those questions that must for ever remain mere points of speculation, or vague charges against destiny. But by that unlocked door, at this quiet moment, did the fell MacStinger dash into the parlour, bringing Alexander MacStinger in her parental arms, and confusion and vengeance (not to mention Juliana MacStinger, and the sweet child’s brother, Charles MacStinger, popularly known about the scenes of his youthful sports, as Chowley) in her train. She came so swiftly and so silently, like a rushing air from the neighbourhood of the East India Docks, that Captain Cuttle found himself in the very act of sitting looking at her, before the calm face with which he had been meditating, changed to one of horror and dismay.

But the moment Captain Cuttle understood the full extent of his misfortune, self-preservation dictated an attempt at flight. Darting at the little door which opened from the parlour on the steep little range of cellar-steps, the Captain made a rush, head-foremost, at the latter, like a man indifferent to bruises and contusions, who only sought to hide himself in the bowels of the earth. In this gallant effort he would probably have succeeded, but for the affectionate dispositions of Juliana and Chowley, who pinning him by the legs — one of those dear children holding on to each— claimed him as their friend, with lamentable cries. In the meantime, Mrs. MacStinger, who never entered upon any action of importance without previously inverting Alexander MacStinger, to bring him within the range of a brisk battery of slaps, and then sitting him down to cool as the reader first beheld him, performed that solemn rite, as if on this occasion it were a sacrifice to the Furies; and having deposited the victim on the floor, made at the Captain with a strength of purpose that appeared to threaten scratches to the interposing Bunsby. [Chapter 39, "Further Adventures of Captain Edward Cuttle, Mariner," vol. 2, p. 142-43]

Michael Steig's Commentary

The first such parodying occurs, however, in the comic plate, The Midshipman is boarded by the enemy (ch. 39), in which the Bunsby-Mac Stinger story echoes certain aspects of Edith and Dombey's situation. The predatory women and the "forced" marriages are paralleled; Browne offers considerable iconography both to illustrate this theme and to tie the two couples together. There are, for example, prints of a sea-battle and a foundering ship, an overturned globe, the upset vestiges of such masculine activities as smoking and drinking, and what is apparently the skin of a huge predatory bird with frightening talons. But further, when we recognize that Mrs. MacStinger holds nearly the same position and strikes the same pose as Edith in the companion plate (discussed below), we realize that the tiny Medusa head near Mrs. MacStinger and the caption, "Medusa" (on Steel 25A only) make up a fitting emblem for both women — for do not both reduce men to powerlessness by a mere look. [98]

Other Illustrators' Depictions of Mrs. MacStinger and The Old Sailors (1847 to 1877)

Left: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s character study of the odd couple on their wedding day: Mrs. MacStinger and Bunsby (1867). Centre: W. H. C. Groome's more muted version of the farcical scene in the back-parlour: Bunsby put his arm around Mrs. MacStinger (1900). Right: Fred Barnard's Household Edition illustration of the waspish widow: "What do you want with Captain Cuttle, I should wish to know?" said Mrs. MacStinger (1877).

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. 67-68.

Created 9 October 2002

Last modified 27 January 2021