Tilly Slowboy
John Leech
4.8 x 4.8 cm, vignetted
1845
Wood engraving
Half-page illustration for Dickens's The Cricket on the Hearth: "Chirp the Second," 89.
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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Passage Illustrated
Caleb sat next his daughter; Dot and her old schoolfellow were side by side; the good Carrier took care of the bottom of the table. Miss Slowboy was isolated, for the time being, from every article of furniture but the chair she sat on, that she might have nothing else to knock the Baby’s head against.
As Tilly stared about her at the dolls and toys, they stared at her and at the company. ["Chirp the Second," 89-90]
Various Notions of Tilly Slowboy, 1845-1912
Leech's illustration of Tilly rocking the Peerybingles' baby in the nursing chair suggests that she is merely the Comic Woman of melodrama, a caricature and nothing more. Later illustrators such as Fred Barnard (1878) and Luigi Rossi (1912) attempt to distinguish her from a simple-minded "natural" (a person of low intellect) or "cony" (a country bumpkin), and individualise her in a realistic manner so different from the cartoon figure of the 1845 first edition of the novella. While E. A. Abbey in the American Household Edition (1876) communicated the odd-looking adolescent's fascination with the "precious" infant, Barnard extended his sympathy to the young nurse from the foundling home, making her gangly and awkward but also animated by utter devotion to her charge. Rossi, on the other hand, features the aptly named Tilly Slowly only once, in a simple thumbnail illustration; however, he treats her realistically rather than as a grotesque.
Images of Tilly in the Original and Later Editions (1845-1912)
Three illustrations depicting Tilly Slowboy — Left: Leech's John's Arrival (1845). Centre: Abbey's Tilly Slowboy and the "Precious Darling" (1876). Right: Rossi's less caricatural Tilly Slowboy's Dance of Joy (1912).
Left: Harry Furniss's somewhat derivative Tilly Slowboy (1910); right: Barnard's "Did its mothers make up its beds, then? etc." (1878).
Above: Abbey's "Ain't he beautiful, John?" (1876).
Illustrations for the Third Volume of the Pears' Centenary Christmas Books of Charles Dickens (1912)
Each contains about thirty illustrations from original drawings by Charles Green, R. I. — Clement Shorter (1912)
Bibliography
Dickens, Charles. Christmas Books, illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Junior. Diamond Edition. 14 vols. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867.
_____. Christmas Books, illustrated by Fred Barnard. Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1878. Vol. XVII.
_____. Christmas Books, illustrated by A. A. Dixon. London & Glasgow: Collins' Clear-Type Press, 1906.
_____. Christmas Books. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. VIII.
_____. Christmas Stories. Illustrated by E. A. Abbey. The Household Edition. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1876.
_____. The Cricket on the Hearth. A Fairy Tale of Home. Illustrated by John Leech, Daniel Maclise, Richard Doyle, Clarkson Stanfield, and Edwin Landseer. Engraved by George Dalziel, Edward Dalziel, T. Williams, J. Thompson, R. Graves, and Joseph Swain. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1846 [December 1845].
_____. The Cricket on the Hearth. Edited by Clement Shorter. Illustrated by L. Rossi. The Centenary Edition. London: A & F Pears, 1912.
Created 20 February 2001
Last modified 24 March 2020