Charles Dickens
Engraved by J. H. Baker from an 1868 photograph by Mason & Co.
1870
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
This portrait of the novelist appeared in the posthumously published Edwin Drood.
According to Harry Stone, the Dickens portrait used in the 1870 Chapman and Hall volume edition of The Mystery of Edwin Drood faced the vignette title page by Luke Fildes (not previously published in the six monthly instalments, April through September). The picture of Dickens was not in fact by Fildes, but rather was "engraved by J. H. Baker from a photograph taken in 1868 by Mason & Co." (Stone, p. 379). In other photos taken during the last few years of his life, Dickens looks by turns exhausted, stupified, ill, or haggard; here, he looks distinguished, noble, the greatest Victorian novelist at the top of his form, though somewhat older than his 56 years.