"I say, how nice you look!" — fifty-fourth illustration by Phiz for Dickens's "Pickwick Papers" (Household Edition, 1874)

I say, how nice you look! by Phiz (Hablot K. Browne). The British Household Edition (1874) of Dickens's Pickwick Papers, p. 385. Engraved by one of the Dalziels. Chapter LIV, “Containing some Particulars relative to the double Knock, and other Matters, among which certain Interesting Disclosures relative to Mr. Snodgrass and a Young Lady are by no means irrelevant to this History,” 374. The composite woodblock illustration is 10.5 cm high by 13.5 cm wide (4 ⅛ by 5 ⅝ inches), framed. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Passage Illustrated: A Happy Ending for The Fat Boy: Food and Romance Galore

"Will you have some of this?" said the fat boy, plunging into the pie up to the very ferules of the knife and fork.

"A little, if you please," replied Mary.

The fat boy assisted Mary to a little, and himself to a great deal, and was just going to begin eating when he suddenly laid down his knife and fork, leaned forward in his chair, and letting his hands, with the knife and fork in them, fall on his knees, said, very slowly —

"I say! How nice you look!"

This was said in an admiring manner, and was, so far, gratifying; but still there was enough of the cannibal in the young gentleman's eyes to render the compliment a double one.

"Dear me, Joseph," said Mary, affecting to blush, "what do you mean?" [Chapter LIV, “Containing some Particulars relative to the double Knock, and other Matters, among which certain Interesting Disclosures relative to Mr. Snodgrass and a Young Lady are by no means irrelevant to this History,” 381]

Commentary: The Antimask, or, Resolving The Fat Boy's Situation

To bring the narrative-pictorial series to a happy conclusion replete with Poetic Justice for all, Phiz revisits the Fat Boy, Joe, Wardle's page, to see that he, too, gets his just desserts: plenty of food and a dash of romance. Previously seen in one of Phiz's earliest plates for the Household Edition of the novel, Mr. Tupman looked around. There was the fat boy (Chapter VIII), the chubby page from Dingley Dell is now the focus of an illustration as the power of sexual attraction overwhelms his gormandising. Thus, Phiz extends the reader's sympathy who throughout the story has been a mere stereotype, and makes him worthy of the reader's interest as the writer pulls together the multiple and various threads of the extremely loose picaresque plot.

However, this Joe for the Household Edition is no longer a distorted, grotesque caricature, but a realistically drawn adolescent; and he is certainly not nearly as fat, although hus full cheeks here imply that he has his mouth full as he contemplates the fair mid across the table full of culinary delights. Consequently, in this illustration Phiz does not merely reprise his original steel-engraving Mary and the Fat Boy. Despite the realism of the dishes on the table and the two young women, the plate is simply not as engaging visually as the 1837 cartoon. No longer a grotesque, the slightly overweight page of the 1874 edition, now nattily attired, is simply not funny, and lacks the "elephantine playfulness" of the text just as this latest May lacks slyness and coyness.

The Scenes with The Fat Boy in Other Editions (1837-1910)

Left: Harry Furniss seems to have had Phiz's original engraving in mind as he emphasized Joe's awkward lasciviousness in Mary and the Fat Boy: The fat boy, with elephantine playfulness, stretched out his arms to ravish a kiss Mary and The Fat Boy (1910). Centre: Phiz's original steel-engraving depicts Joe as grotesque, far more interested in food than in developing a relationship with Mary: Mary and the Fat Boy (1874). Right: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s Diamond Edition Vol. 1 illustration The Fat Boy (1867) makes Joe a grossly overweight child. [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

Left: Phiz's original engraving for the opening chapters of the serial, The Fat Boy Awake Again (substituted in November 1837 for Chapter VIII). Right: Thomas Nast's American Household Edition woodcut reworks Phiz's 1837 steel engraving as "Will you have some of this?" said the Fat Boy (1873). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

Related Material

Other artists who illustrated this work, 1836-1910

Scanned images and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the images, and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Bibliography

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. 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.

Hammerton, J. A. The Dickens Picture-Book. London: Educational Book Co., 1910.

Johnannsen, Albert. "The Posthumous Papers of The Pickwick Club." Phiz Illustrations from the Novels of Charles Dickens. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; Toronto: The University of Toronto Press, 1956. Pp. 1-74.

Kitton, Frederic G. Dickens and His Illustrators. 1899. Rpt. Honolulu: U. Press of the Pacific, 2004.

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 3 April 2024