"Mrs. Bardell screamed violently; Tommy roared" — forty-seventh illustration by Phiz for Dickens's "Pickwick Papers"

Mrs. Bardell screamed violently; Tommy roared; Mrs. Cluppins shrunk within herself; and Mrs. Sanders made off without more ado (See page 327.) by Phiz (Hablot K. Browne) on page 337 in the Household Edition (1874) of Dickens's Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, Chapter XLVI, “Records a touching Act of delicate Feeling, not unmixed with Pleasantry, achieved and performed by Messrs. Dodson and Fogg.” Wood-engraving, 4 ⅜ inches high by 5 ½ inches wide (11.2 cm high by 14.1 cm wide), framed, half-page; descriptive headline: "Identification" (p. 337). [Click on the illustration to enlarge it.]

Passage Illustrated: The Recognition Scene at the Entrance to The Fleet

"What place is this?" inquired Mrs. Bardell, pausing.

"Only one of our public offices," replied Jackson, hurrying her through a door, and looking round to see that the other women were following. "Look sharp, Isaac!"

"Safe and sound," replied the man with the ash stick. The door swung heavily after them, and they descended a small flight of steps.

"Here we are at last. All right and tight, Mrs. Bardell!" said Jackson, looking exultingly round.

"What do you mean?" said Mrs. Bardell, with a palpitating heart.

"Just this," replied Jackson, drawing her a little on one side; "don't be frightened, Mrs. Bardell. There never was a more delicate man than Dodson, ma’am, or a more humane man than Fogg. It was their duty in the way of business, to take you in execution for them costs; but they were anxious to spare your feelings as much as they could. What a comfort it must be, to you, to think how it’s been done! This is the Fleet, ma’am. Wish you good–night, Mrs. Bardell. Good–night, Tommy!"

As Jackson hurried away in company with the man with the ash stick another man, with a key in his hand, who had been looking on, led the bewildered female to a second short flight of steps leading to a doorway. Mrs. Bardell screamed violently; Tommy roared; Mrs. Cluppins shrunk within herself; and Mrs. Sanders made off, without more ado. For there stood the injured Mr. Pickwick, taking his nightly allowance of air; and beside him leant Samuel Weller, who, seeing Mrs. Bardell, took his hat off with mock reverence, while his master turned indignantly on his heel.

"Don't bother the woman," said the turnkey to Weller, "she's just come in." [Chapter XLVI, “Records a touching Act of delicate Feeling, not unmixed with Pleasantry, achieved and performed by Messrs. Dodson and Fogg,” pp. 326-327]

Commentary: Nemesis for the Naive Mrs. Bardell

Phiz's original version of the prison-yard encounter, Mrs. Bardell encounters Mr. Pickwick in the Prison (August 1837).

Following the practice of the Household Edition to provide a large-scale illustration every ten pages, the editors force readers to examine this Chapter XXXVI plate Mrs. Bardell screamed violently; Tommy roared; Mrs. Cluppins shrunk within herself; and Mrs. Sanders made off without more ado analeptically, that is, well past the textual moment realised. (Analepsis involves the interruption of the chronological sequence to the present by introducing events from the past within the current timeline; whereas a flashback is a deliberate analepsis, what we have here is an accidental analepsis as the plate realizes a textual moment ten pages earlier.) By the time that readers actually encounter the plate realising Mrs. Bardell's arrival in The Fleet, the letterpress is already dealing with events in Chapter XXXVIII, namely Bob Sawyer, Ben Allen, and the swooning Aunt, all part of the romance plot involving Nathaniel Winkle and Arabella Allen.

Having enlisted the unscrupulous attorneys Dodson and Fogg to prosecute the hapless bachelor, Mr. Pickwick, for "breach of promise of marriage," Mrs. Bardell has failed to pay her court costs, although she has won Pickwick v. Bardell. Mrs. Bardell is now the subject of poetic justice or Nemesis as her own attorneys (through their suave functionary, Jackson), since Pickwick still proves obdurate, seize their own client "in execution of costs." To paraphrase Shakespeare's Hamlet, she has been hoisted on her own petard, and must become an inmate — together with her odious son Tommy (centre, beside his shocked mother) — of The Fleet. Phiz here has reprised precisely a scene from the August 1837 number, Mrs. Bardell encounters Mr. Pickwick in the Prison, but he has also brought Mrs. Saunders well down stage, so to speak, retaining only the turnkey from the figures on the steps to the rear, and treating the comic scene less exuberantly, as is consistent with the new realism of the Sixties.

In the present illustration, Dodson and Fogg's cunning functionary, Jackson, on the pretext of hastening the client to an emergency meeting with her attorneys, has just delivered Mrs. Bardell, Tommy Bardell, and Mrs. Cluppins to the central yard of the Fleet Prison, which Phiz identifies by the bars on the window (rear centre), the railing (left), and a single figure not associated with Pickwick and Mrs. Bardell, namely the officer in the doorway, holding a bunch of keys, and therefore a turnkey. Although Phiz has placed the principals in Pickwick v. Bardell well forward, he has emphasized the figure of the fleeing Mrs. Sanders in the right margin. Pickwick is surprsingly neutral in his affect (outward reflection of his psychological state), but Sam tips his hat sarcastically, as if to say, "Your chickens have come home to roost, my dear!"

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. Pp. 24-50.

Created 11 March 2012

Last modified 27 April 2024