The Reader's Passport by Thomas Nast, in Charles Dickens's Pictures from Italy, Sketches, and American Notes, Chapter I, "The Reader's Passport," p. 10. Wood-engraving, 4 by 5 ¼ inches (10.3 cm high by 13.5 cm wide), vignetted. 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.] Click on the image to enlarge it.
Passage Realized: The French and Italian Border Agents Read a Passport
And I have only now, in passport wise, to sketch my reader’s portrait, which I hope may be thus supposititiously traced for either sex:
Complexion............................Fair.
Eyes.........................................Very cheerful.
Nose.........................................Not supercilious.
Mouth......................................Smiling.
Visage.......................................Beaming.
General Expression................Extremely agreeable. ["The Reader's Passport," p. 10]
Commentary: A Visual Editorial, Not an Illustration
From his journalistic cartoons Nast has adapted the strategy of commenting upon his textual materials rather than illustrating or realizing them. Despite the initials "C. D." on the steamer-trunk in the foreground, Nast has taken this opportunity in the headnote illustration for Pictures from Italy to satirize the petty bureaucrats in charge of customs and immigration at the numerous border-crossings Dickens and his family encountered as they travelled from London to Genoa, and subsequently through the various states of the politically divided Italian peninsula in 1844-45. The woman, infant, and child have apparently presented the gigantic document with appropriate stamps to an Italian official, whose French counterpart stands with his hands in his pockets, for he is merely a bystander as the travellers move across the border between Provence and Tuscany. The illustration, in fact, is almost disconnected from Dickens's remarks in the opening chapter.
Related Material
- Samuel Palmer — The Reader's Passport
- Sol Eytinge, Jr. — The Brave Courier
- Charles Dickens, the traveler — places he visited
- Charles Dickens, 1843 daguerrotype by Unbek in America; the earliest known photographic portrait of the author
Relevant Marcus Stone illustrations for Pictures from Italy
Bibliography
Dickens, Charles. Chapter I, "The Reader's Passport." Pictures from Italy, Sketches by Boz, and American Notes. Illustrated by A. B. Frost and Thomas Nast. The Household Edition. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1877. Pp. 9-10.
Dickens, Charles. Pictures from Italy and American Notes. Illustrated by A. B. Frost and Gordon Thomson. London: Chapman and Hall, 1880. Pp. 1-381.
Last modified 5 May 2019