Alfred Jingle, Esq.
Fred Barnard
1884
17 cm high by 13.3 cm wide (6 ¾ inches high by 5 ⅛ inches wide), vignetted
His face was thin and haggard; but an indescribable air of jaunty impudence and perfect self-possession pervaded the whole man. — Pickwick Papers.
One of six lithographs in A Series of Character Sketches from Dickens, from the Original Drawings by Frederick Barnard . . .. Series 1 (1884). [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Passage Realised: Pickwick's Chance Meeting with the Unemployed Actor
‘Here, waiter!’ shouted the stranger, ringing the bell with tremendous violence, ‘glasses round—brandy-and-water, hot and strong, and sweet, and plenty, — eye damaged, Sir? Waiter! raw beef-steak for the gentleman’s eye — nothing like raw beef-steak for a bruise, sir; cold lamp-post very good, but lamp-post inconvenient — damned odd standing in the open street half an hour, with your eye against a lamp-post — eh, — very good — ha! ha!’ And the stranger, without stopping to take breath, swallowed at a draught full half a pint of the reeking brandy-and-water, and flung himself into a chair with as much ease as if nothing uncommon had occurred.
While his three companions were busily engaged in proffering their thanks to their new acquaintance, Mr. Pickwick had leisure to examine his costume and appearance.
He was about the middle height, but the thinness of his body, and the length of his legs, gave him the appearance of being much taller. The green coat had been a smart dress garment in the days of swallow-tails, but had evidently in those times adorned a much shorter man than the stranger, for the soiled and faded sleeves scarcely reached to his wrists. It was buttoned closely up to his chin, at the imminent hazard of splitting the back; and an old stock, without a vestige of shirt collar, ornamented his neck. His scanty black trousers displayed here and there those shiny patches which bespeak long service, and were strapped very tightly over a pair of patched and mended shoes, as if to conceal the dirty white stockings, which were nevertheless distinctly visible. His long, black hair escaped in negligent waves from beneath each side of his old pinched-up hat; and glimpses of his bare wrists might be observed between the tops of his gloves and the cuffs of his coat sleeves. His face was thin and haggard; but an indescribable air of jaunty impudence and perfect self-possession pervaded the whole man.
Such was the individual on whom Mr. Pickwick gazed through his spectacles (which he had fortunately recovered), and to whom he proceeded, when his friends had exhausted themselves, to return in chosen terms his warmest thanks for his recent assistance. [Chapter II, "The First Day's Journey, and the First Evening's Adventures; with Their Consequences," Household Edition, pp. 5-6]
A Note on The Distinctive "Interrupting Voice"
The passage above elaborates on Jingle's having just rescued the Pickwickians from a mob at a central London cab stand. Apparently, Mr. Samuel Pickwick and his club have somehow excited a popular misimpression that they are police informants. The surly bystanders now debate whether to act upon "the propriety of enforcing the heated pastry-vendor’s proposition: and there is no saying what acts of personal aggression they might have committed, had not the affray been unexpectedly terminated by the interposition of a new-comer" — the slightly down-at-heel, green-coated Alfred Jingle.
At this point, Dickens renders Jingle as merely a distinctive voice: "‘What’s the fun?’ said a rather tall, thin, young man, in a green coat, emerging suddenly from the coach-yard." Pickwick makes the tactical mistake of confronting the mob's accusations rather than simply retreating to the nearest public house. At this critical junction, Jingle comes to Pickwick's rescue: "That learned man in a few hurried words explained the real state of the case. ‘Come along, then,’ said he of the green coat, lugging Mr. Pickwick after him by main force, and talking the whole way. Here, No. 924, take your fare, and take yourself off — respectable gentleman — know him well — none of your nonsense — this way, sir" (5). Ever a survivor, Jingle leads Pickwick and his disciples away from the fray and into the safety of the traveller’s waiting-room. Their journey to Kent has just begun.
An Alfred Jingle Gallery, The Progress of a Plausible Rogue: 1836 through 1910
Left: Jingle depicts the same comic scene, Harry Furniss's Jingle and the Widow at the Ball. Centre: Phiz's Household Edition Edition illustration which sets the scene for the quarrel and challenge, "What! Introducing his friend?", which presents the suave, self-confident Jingle at the ball. Right: Clayton J. Clarke's Player's Cigarette card shows the spry confidence-man in a Pickwickian green tailcoat: Mr. Jingle (1910). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Left: The July 1837 serial number of novel included the scene in the Fleet Prison's general cell when Pickwick unexpectedly re-encounters the down-and-out actor: Phiz's The Discovery of Jingle in the Fleert. Centre: Phiz's 1874 Household Edition Edition woodcut which repeats the scene in the Fleet: Letting his hat hat fall on the floor, he stood perfectly fixed and immovable with astonishment. Right: In Harry Furniss's Charles Dickens Library Edition version, a Jingle against no contextual backdrop strikes a casual pose as he sits on a table in a public house: Mr. Alfred Jingle (1910). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Left: In Seymour's version of Jingle at the regimental dance at The Bull Inn, Rochester, in Kent, the actor (wearing a borrowed Pickwickian's jacket) excites the animosity of another "angry man," the regimental surgeon: Dr. Slammer's Defiance (May 1836). Right: In Furniss's Charles Dickens Library Edition version of the scene in the Fleet, a much subdued Jingle strikes a melancholy pose as Pickwick enters the general lockup of the prison: Jingle in the Fleet (1910). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Seymour to Barnard: The Soul behind the Mask: The Rest is Silence
Since the background here is hardly the general lockup at The Fleet, it is probably the traveller's rest to which Jingle initially shepherds the Pickwickians: the tawdriness of the room suggests the part of London in which Pickwick has found himself. The illustrator offers us scant realia and no supporting characters through which to assess the context, although the rack of billard balls suggests a poolroom. Clearly, we are seeing what Pickwick sees, but with this difference: we are thoroughly aware of Jingle's trajectory.
The shyster and confidence man who subsequently preys upon Pickwick’s gullibility required caricaturist Robert Seymour’s sharp-edged realization of a figure from Regency farce. However, the sad figure in the Fleet who merits Pickwick’s compassion requires something more than a smart-mouthed cartoon character. Here then is the real mind embodied, the redeemed soul whom Pickwick has released and sends to Jamaica to become, one imagines, a theatrical producer and ultimately a builder of Empire. Thus, the figure who remains a caricature in Furniss’s sequence seventy five years after Seymour’s becomes in Barnard’s sequence of “Characters from Dickens” his most daring and yet most plausible departure from the original. Here then is Barnard’s fundamental and persuasive reinterpretation of the subtle mind behind the sarcastic mask of the fast-talking trickster.
The artists who illustrated this first Dickens novel, 1836-1910
- Robert Seymour (1836)
- Hablot Knight Brown (1836-37)
- Felix Octavius Carr Darley (1861)
- Sol Eytinge, Jr. (1867)
- Hablot Knight Browne (1874)
- A selected list of illustrations by Harry Furniss for the Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910)
- Clayton J. Clarke's Extra Illustration for Player's Cigarettes (1910)
Related Material
- Jingle in illustrations of Charles Dickens's Pickwick Papers
- Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens (homepage)
- Thomas Nast's Pickwick illustrations
- The complete list of illustrations by Seymour and Phiz for the original edition
- The complete list of illustrations by Phiz for the Household Edition
- An introduction to the Household Edition (1871-79)
Bibliography
Barnard, Fred. Character Sketches from Dickens. (16 photogravure illustrations). London, Paris & Melbourne: Cassell, 1885.
Barnard, Fred. Scenes and Characters from the Works of Charles Dickens. London: Chapman and Hall, 1908.
Dickens, Charles. Pickwick Papers. Illustrated by Robert Seymour and Hablot Knight Browne. London: Chapman & Hall, 1836-37.
Dickens, Charles. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. Engraved by A. V. S. Anthony. The Diamond Edition. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867.
Dickens, Charles. Pickwick Papers. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ('Phiz'). The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1874. Vol. II.
Dickens, Charles. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. The Household Edition. Illustrated by Thomas Nast. New York: Harper and Brothers 1873.
A Series of Character Sketches from Dickens, from the Original Drawings by Frederick Barnard, Being Facsimiles of Original Drawings by Fred. Barnard. Series 1: Mrs. Gamp, Alfred Jingle, Bill Sikes, Little Dorrit, Sydney Carton, and Pickwick. London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, 1884.
Created 13 February 2025