He no sooner heard the horrible threat of the valorous Dowler, than he bounced out of the sedan" — thirty-sixth illustration by Phiz for Dickens's "Pickwick Papers" (1874)

He no sooner heard the horrible threat of the valorous Dowler, than he bounced out of the sedan, etc. (See page 258.) by Phiz (Hablot K. Browne) on page 257 in the Household Edition (1874) of Dickens's Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, Chapter XXXVI, "The Chief Features of which, will be found to be an Authentic Version of The Legend of Prince Bladud, and a most Extraordinary Calamity that befell Mr. Winkle." Wood-engraving, 4 ¼ inches high by 5 ½ inches wide (11.1 cm high by 14.1 cm wide), framed, half-page; descriptive headline: "On the Wrong Side of the Door" (p. 257). [Click on the illustration to enlarge it.]

Passage Illustrated: Mayhem and Physical Comedy in Royal Crescent, Bath

Right: Winkle shut out by Harry Furniss for the Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910).

Mr. Winkle gave a last hopeless knock; the ladies were only a few doors off. He threw away the extinguished candle, which, all this time he had held above his head, and fairly bolted into the sedan-chair where Mrs. Dowler was.

Now, Mrs. Craddock had heard the knocking and the voices at last; and, only waiting to put something smarter on her head than her nightcap, ran down into the front drawing-room to make sure that it was the right party. Throwing up the window-sash as Mr. Winkle was rushing into the chair, she no sooner caught sight of what was going forward below, than she raised a vehement and dismal shriek, and implored Mr. Dowler to get up directly, for his wife was running away with another gentleman.

Upon this, Mr. Dowler bounced off the bed as abruptly as an India-rubber ball, and rushing into the front room, arrived at one window just as Mr. Pickwick threw up the other, when the first object that met the gaze of both, was Mr. Winkle bolting into the sedan-chair.

‘Watchman,’ shouted Dowler furiously, ‘stop him — hold him — keep him tight — shut him in, till I come down. I’ll cut his throat — give me a knife — from ear to ear, Mrs. Craddock — I will!’ And breaking from the shrieking landlady, and from Mr. Pickwick, the indignant husband seized a small supper-knife, and tore into the street.

But Mr. Winkle didn’t wait for him. He no sooner heard the horrible threat of the valorous Dowler, than he bounced out of the sedan, quite as quickly as he had bounced in, and throwing off his slippers into the road, took to his heels and tore round the crescent, hotly pursued by Dowler and the watchman. [Chapter XXXVI, "The Chief Features of which, will be found to be an Authentic Version of The Legend of Prince Bladud, and a most Extraordinary Calamity that befell Mr. Winkle," p. 258]

Commentary: A French Farce out of a Bedroom

Left: Phiz's original composition, Mr. Winkle's Situation when the door "blew-to" (April 1837).

At 3:00 A. M. Mrs. Dowler, wife Dickens's stock "irate man," Captain Dowler, is returning to her rooms in the crescent by sedan-chair from a party. She has commanded the chief (rotund) chairman and his tall, thin assistant to rap vigorously on the ground-floor door to awaken her husband, but to no avail. In his original, uproarious serial illustration for the April 18937 number, Phiz had conflated several moments, so that Pickwick is already looking out of the window, and Winkle clambered out of the chair, having just taken refuge there to avoid a party of ladies seeing him in his nightshirt. Phiz in redrafting the original makes the whole more realistic, and focuses on Winkle in his dressing-gown, downplaying the original's tense mood of confusion.

Gone entirely is the enraged Dowler at the window above the confusion in the street. In fact, Phiz gives very little sense of the Royal Crescent backdrop, and draws our attention to Winkle (left), blown by the wind and looking up (presumably at Dowler), and the confused, fashionably dressed Mrs. Dowler in the sedan chair. The less comic effect of the redrafted plate is the result of omitting Dowler and treating the chairman and his assistant realistically, rather than as Cruikshankian grotesques. But a nice touch is Winkle's having walked out of his slippers.

Relevant Scenes from the Original Serial

The Card-room at Bath by Phiz (Ch. 35) April 1837
Conviviality at Bob Sawyer's by Phiz (Ch. 38) May 1837

Related Material

Other artists who illustrated this work, 1836-1910

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Bibliography

Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. New York and Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1990.

Cohen, Jane Rabb. Charles Dickens and His Original Illustrators. Columbus: Ohio State U. P., 1980.

Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File and Checkmark Books, 1998.

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).

_____. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Frontispieces by Felix Octavius Carr Darley and Sir John Gilbert. The Household Edition. 55 vols. New York: Sheldon & Co., 1863. 4 vols.

_____. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Thomas Nast. The Household Edition. 22 vols. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1873. Vol. 2.

_____. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ('Phiz'). The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1874. Vol. 5.

_____. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. 2.

_____. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. 14 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. Vol. 1.

_______. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Thomas Nast. The Household Edition. 16 vols. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1873. Vol. 4.

_______. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ('Phiz'). The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1874. Vol. 6.

_______. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. 2.

Guiliano, Edward, and Philip Collins, eds. The Annotated Dickens. 2 vols. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1986. Vol. I.

Steig, Michael. Chapter 2. "The Beginnings of 'Phiz': Pickwick, Nickleby, and the Emergence from Caricature." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U. P., 1978. 24-50.

Created 10 March 2012

Last modified 23 April 2024