When the action removed to France [in Chapter XX of Tom Burke of "Ours", in June 1843], and Tom became a Napoleonic officer, the dilemma [of Tom's conflicting sympathies] persisted. Patriotism demanded that the French army be not overpraised, and Napoleon be painted as an ogre; but all Lever's impulses were toward enthusiastic admiration. He avoided the crux of the problem by introducing no scene of battle between French and British; the campaigns in Italy, Germany, and Russia could safely be depicted to the advantage of the French. But in spite of intermittent glimpses of Napoleon's dictatorial methods, Tom Burke's hero-worship is plausibly sustained; and in 1843 it was still daring — almost unheard-of — for a British author to admit any merits in the Corsican's character. — Lionel Stevenson, Dr. Quicksilver, pp. 120-121.
In the series of Napoleon illustrations for the period of 12 December 1799 through 18 May 1804 in Tom Burke of "Ours", when "General" Bonaparte was still very much a citizen-soldier serving the Revolution as First Consul, alongside J. J. Cambacérès and Charles-François Lebrun, Phiz treats the figure of the great military and political strategist with considerable respect, perhaps, in part, because of the narrator's hero-worshipping Napoleon as the embodiment of the ideals of the French Revolution. The illustrator takes his cue from the narrator, for Tom Burke regards the First Consul as the guardian of the citizen's fundamental rights of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity; Tom's attitude until the close of the first volume reflects that of his mentor, De Meudon. This "early" Napoleon is slender, active, and thin-faced. In contrast, in Charles O'Malley, whose plates he drew first, Napoleon the Emperor is something of a joke: rigid, middle-aged, plump, balding, and supercilious, the aging figure whom the British and Prussians out-soldiered at Waterloo, and forced into exile far from Europe, on St. Helena. This is the Napoleon whom Phiz depicts in the frontispiece for the second volume of Tom Burke, A Parting Scene with Napoleon (issued September 1844), illustrating Tom's farewell to the Emperor (who is, of course, no longer "Emperor") in Chapter LXXXV, "Fontainebleau" (Vol. 2); in Chapter XLI of the second volume of the 1869 edition.
Lever's Fascination with Napoleon: 1840-43
Lever's Tom Burke of "Ours" (1843)
Lever's Charles O'Malley (1840)
From Lever's "Preface," dated May, 1857, for Tom Burke
I was led to write this story by two impulses: first, the fascination which the name and exploits of the great Emperor had ever exercised on my mind as a boy; and secondly, by the favorable notice which the Press had bestowed upon my scenes of soldier-life in Charles O'Malley.
If I had not in the wars of the Empire the patriotic spirit of a great national struggle to sustain me, I had a field far wider and grander than any afforded by our Peninsular campaigns; while in the character of the French army, composed as it was of elements derived from every rank and condition, there were picturesque effects one might have sought for in vain throughout the rest of Europe. [Vol. I, 1865 edition, iii]
Links to Related Material
- A Touch at Leap Frog with Napoleon (Chapter LI, "The March," December 1840)
- Napoleon's Surprising Popularity in Nineteenth-Century England
- Charles Lever's Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon (1840-41)
- Arsenic Poisoning and Napoleon's Death
- Antonio Canova's Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker (1806)
- The French Revolution and Victorian England
Bibliography
Brown, John Buchanan. Phiz! Illustrator of Dickens' World. New York: Charles Scribner's, 1978.
Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.
Lever, Charles. Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablot Knight Browne]. Published serially in The Dublin University Magazine from Vol. XV (March 1840) through XVIII (December 1841). Dublin: William Curry, March 1840 through December 1841, 2 vols. London: Samuel Holdsworth, 1840; rpt., Chapman and Hall, 1873.
Lever, Charles. Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablot Knight Browne]. Novels and Romances of Charles Lever. Vol. I and II. In two volumes. Project Gutenberg. Last Updated: 2 September 2016.
Lever, Charles. Tom Burke of "Ours." Dublin: William Curry, Jun., 1844. Illustrated by H. K. Browne. London: Chapman and Hall, 1865. Serialised February 1843 through September 1844. 2 vols.
Lever, Charles. Tom Burke of "Ours." Illustrated by Phiz [Hablột Knight Browne]. Vol. I and II. In two volumes. Project Gutenberg. Last Updated: 24 February 2021.
Stevenson, Lionel. Chapter V, "Renegade from Physic, 1839-1841." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. London: Chapman and Hall, 1939. Pp. 73-93.
Created 28 October 2023 Revised 8 November 2023