"Leave this lad to me, Ma'am; leave this lad to me."
John McLenan
11.3 cm high by 11.2 cm wide (4 ½ by 4 ½ inches)
Dickens's Great Expectations, Instalment 6, Harper's Weekly IV (29 December 1860): 821.
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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Passage Illustrated: Self-important "Uncle" Pumblechook interrogates Pip
“Well, boy,” Uncle Pumblechook began, as soon as he was seated in the chair of honour by the fire. “How did you get on up town?”
I answered, “Pretty well, sir,” and my sister shook her fist at me.
“Pretty well?” Mr. Pumblechook repeated. “Pretty well is no answer. Tell us what you mean by pretty well, boy?”
Whitewash on the forehead hardens the brain into a state of obstinacy perhaps. Anyhow, with whitewash from the wall on my forehead, my obstinacy was adamantine. I reflected for some time, and then answered as if I had discovered a new idea, “I mean pretty well.”
My sister with an exclamation of impatience was going to fly at me,—I had no shadow of defence, for Joe was busy in the forge, — when Mr. Pumblechook interposed with “No! Don’t lose your temper. Leave this lad to me, ma’am; leave this lad to me.” Mr. Pumblechook then turned me towards him, as if he were going to cut my hair, and said, —
“First (to get our thoughts in order): Forty-three pence?” [Chapter IX, 821: Pumblechook, right, Mrs. Joe, centre, and Pip, left, in front of the hearth in the Gargerys' parlour. This is Plate 9 in the T. B. Peterson single-volume edition of 1861; it is listed as facing p. 53, but actually serves as the volume's frontispiece.]
Commentary: If Truth is Stranger than Fiction . . .
Since Pip considers that everything that he has seen of Miss Havisham inside Satis House is simply too bizarre to be credited by his stern sister and her pompous uncle, Pip gives them a far-fetched account that he nevertheless feels will be more believable. McLenan here captures the very essence of Pumblechook here: fat, complacent, and egotistical, the village's principal merchant takes his paternalistic relationship with Mrs. Joe veery seriously. He also enjoys imposing his values (as represented by the arithmetical sums he is wont to throw at Pip) upon the unlettered, unschooled boy. Mrs. Joe's threatening gesture reveals her customary way of dealing with her brother, but Pumblechook puts back her menacing fist, proposing to get to the bottom of Pip's experiences at Satis House. At a glance the reader correctly surmises that Pip in retrospect regards the menacing pair as oppressors and interrogators.
Relevant Images of Pip, Joe, Pumblechook, and Mrs. Joe from Other Editions (1861-1910)
Left: F. O. C. Darley's 1888 study of the sadistic Mrs. Joe and "Tickler": Mrs. Gargery on the Ram-page. Left of centre: In the 1885 Kerslake & Robson Edition Pailthorpe introduces Pip's visit to Satis House with the delivery of the invitation to "play": Mrs. Joe returning from an Expedition in the the caricatural style of George Cruikshank. Centre: H. M. Brock's study of Pip and his family: And then they both stared at me (1910). Right: Harry Furniss's study of Pip's being the regular butt and victim of Mrs. Joe's oppression: Pip does not enjoy his Christmas dinner (1910).
Related Material
- Images of Joe and Mrs. Joe in Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations
- Dickens's Great Expectations in Film and Television, 1917-2000
- Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations
- Bibliography of works relevant to illustrations of Great Expectations
Other Artists’ Illustrations for Dickens's Great Expectations
- Edward Ardizzone (2 plates selected)
- H. M. Brock (8 lithographs)
- J. Clayton Clarke ("Kyd") (2 lithographs from watercolours)
- Felix O. C. Darley (4 photogravure plates)
- Sol Eytinge, Jr. (8 wood engravings)
- Marcus Stone (8 wood engravings)
- Frederic W. Pailthorpe (21 steel engravings)
- F. A. Fraser in the Household Edition (29 wood engravings)
- Harry Furniss (28 plates)
- Charles Green (10 lithographs)
Bibliography
Allingham, Philip V. "The Illustrations for Great Expectations in Harper's Weekly (1860-61) and in the Illustrated Library Edition (1862) — 'Reading by the Light of Illustration'." Dickens Studies Annual, Vol. 40 (2009): 113-169.
Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization. Il. John McLenan. Vol. IV.
______. ("Boz."). Great Expectations. With thirty-four illustrations from original designs by John McLenan. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson (by agreement with Harper & Bros., New York), 1861.
______. Great Expectations. Volume 6 of the Household Edition. Illustrated by F. A. Fraser. London: Chapman and Hall, 1876.
Paroissien, David. The Companion to "Great Expectations." Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 2000.
Created 20 November 2007 Last updated 18 November 2021