"Mr. Pickwick at Cards — Winning" — Harry Furniss's tenth regular illustration for Dickens's "Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club" (1910)

Mr. Pickwick at Cards — Winning, a re-interpretation of Phiz's card-room illustrations (1837), 9.5 cm high by 14.4 cm wide (3 ¾ inches by 5 ⅝ inches) vignetted, in Dickens's The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, Chapter VI, “An old-fashioned Card Party — The Clergyman's Verses — The Story of the Convict's Return,” in The Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910) facing II, 73.

Passage Realised: The Pickwickians Visit Bath with the Usual Misadventures

Thomas Onwhyn's "extra" 31 October 1837 steel-engraving for Chapter XXXV, “The fat old lady,” inquired Mr.Pickwick, innocently.
“Hush, my dear Sir — nobody's fat or old in Ba-ath. That’s the Dowager Snuphanuph.” (to face p. 380).

The lethargic youth contrived without any additional rousing to set out two card-tables; the one for Pope Joan, and the other for whist. The whist-players were Mr. Pickwick and the old lady, Mr. Miller and the fat gentleman. The round game comprised the rest of the company.

The rubber was conducted with all that gravity of deportment and sedateness of demeanour which befit the pursuit entitled ‘whist’ — a solemn observance, to which, as it appears to us, the title of ‘game’ has been very irreverently and ignominiously applied. The round-game table, on the other hand, was so boisterously merry as materially to interrupt the contemplations of Mr. Miller, who, not being quite so much absorbed as he ought to have been, contrived to commit various high crimes and misdemeanours, which excited the wrath of the fat gentleman to a very great extent, and called forth the good-humour of the old lady in a proportionate degree. [Chapter VI, “An old-fashioned Card Party — The Clergyman's Verses — The Story of the Convict's Return,” pp. 71-72]

Commentary: Pickwick in a Scene never before attempted (1910)

Furniss's original caption: Mr. Miller, who, not being quite so much absorbed as he ought to have been, contrived to commit various high crimes and misdemeanours, which excited the wrath of the fat gentleman to a very great extent, and called forth the good-humour of the old lady in a proportionate degree. — Pickwick, p. 71.

In the lithograph Furniss leaves it up to the reader to construct Pickwick's expression since his back is towards the viewer, but shows young Mr. Miller (right) as quite bemused as the enormous adversary glares at him across the table. The old lady across from Pickwick is a perfect caricature of an aged woman in a frilly hat. Although she is almost totally deaf, she seems to be enjoying herself as she studies her hand. The growling "fat gentleman" is yet another iteration of that stock Pickwick figure, the overweight, middle-aged, irate man full of his own importance. Perhaps Seymour and Phiz avoided this early card-game simply because it seems to make Pickwick look unusually astute. He certainly does not fare well at the card-tables in the Assembly Rooms at Bath later in the novel.

Pickwick's Card Games in Other Editions (1837-74)

Left: Phiz's British Household Edition's engraving for the Chapter XXXV, is less caricatural, and focuses on the Master of Ceremonies, "Poor Mr. Pickwick! He had never played with three thorough-paced female card-players before (1874). Right: Phiz's original steel engraving for Chapter XXXV (April 1837) The Card-room at Bath. [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

Other artists who illustrated this work, 1836-1910

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

Bibliography

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 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. 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 in The Annotated Dickens. 2 vols. Edited by Edward Guiliano and Philip Collins. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1986. Vol. 1.

Created 5 April 2024