"Mr. Pickwick at Cards — Losing" — Harry Furniss's thirty-second regular illustration for Dickens's "Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club" (1910)

Mr. Pickwick at Cards — Losing, a re-interpretation of Phiz's card-room illustrations (1837), 9.6 cm high by 14.8 cm wide (3 ¾ inches by 5 ¾ inches) vignetted, in Dickens's The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, Chapter XXXV, “In which Mr. Pickwick thinks he had better go to bath; and goes accordingly,” in The Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910) facing II, 512.

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).

Poor Mr. Pickwick! he had never played with three thorough-paced female card-players before. They were so desperately sharp, that they quite frightened him. If he played a wrong card, Miss Bolo looked a small armoury of daggers; if he stopped to consider which was the right one, Lady Snuphanuph would throw herself back in her chair, and smile with a mingled glance of impatience and pity to Mrs. Colonel Wugsby, at which Mrs. Colonel Wugsby would shrug up her shoulders, and cough, as much as to say she wondered whether he ever would begin. Then, at the end of every hand, Miss Bolo would inquire with a dismal countenance and reproachful sigh, why Mr. Pickwick had not returned that diamond, or led the club, or roughed the spade, or finessed the heart, or led through the honour, or brought out the ace, or played up to the king, or some such thing; and in reply to all these grave charges, Mr. Pickwick would be wholly unable to plead any justification whatever, having by this time forgotten all about the game. People came and looked on, too, which made Mr. Pickwick nervous. Besides all this, there was a great deal of distracting conversation near the table, between Angelo Bantam and the two Misses Matinter, who, being single and singular, paid great court to the Master of the Ceremonies, in the hope of getting a stray partner now and then. All these things, combined with the noises and interruptions of constant comings in and goings out, made Mr. Pickwick play rather badly; the cards were against him, also; and when they left off at ten minutes past eleven, Miss Bolo rose from the table considerably agitated, and went straight home, in a flood of tears and a sedan-chair. [Chapter XLV, “In which Mr. Pickwick thinks he had better go to Bath; and goes accordingly,” 513]

Commentary: Pickwick escapes to Bath, but merely exchanges tensions

Furniss's original caption: Mr. Pickwick would be wholly unable to plead any justification whatever; having by this time forgotten all about the game. — Pickwick, p. 513.

The lithograph leaves it up to the reader to construct Pickwick's confusion, but more than adequately graphs the consternation of his elderly card-partner across the table (Miss Bolo), and the smirk of triumph on the faces of the corpulent Dowager Snuphanuph (right) and the crone-like Mrs. Colonel Wugsby. Furniss dramatizes Pickwick's chagrin by the manner in which his hands are gripping the chair-back. His satire of Ba-ath society is best conveyed through the enormous and elaborate head-dresses that all three female card-players wear. Whereas the original Phiz illustration of the card game includes the crowded tearoom and conveys an impression of the crowds who attend these social functions nightly, Furniss moves in for the close-up.

The Pickwickians' Bath Adventures in Other Editions (1836-74)

Left: Thomas Nast's American Household Edition's engraving for the Chapter XXXV, Having taken a short walk through the city (1873). Right: Phiz's original steel engraving for Chapter XXXV (April 1837) The Card-room at Bath. [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

Left: Phiz's other April 1837 steel engraving of the Bath sojourn: for Chapter XXXVI, Mr. Winkle's Situation when the Door 'blew-to'. Right: The British Household Edition's Bath illustration by Phiz of the card-room 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). [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 8 March 2024