"Go to Richards! Go!" — fifth illustration by W. L. Sheppard for Dickens's "Dombey and Son" (American Household Edition, 1873)

"Go to Richards! Go!" by W. L. Sheppard. Fifth illustration for Dickens's Dombey and Son in the American Household Edition (1873), Chapter III, "In which Mr. Dombey, as a Man and a Father, is seen at the Head of the Home Establishment," page 19. 10.5 x 13.4 cm (4 ⅛ by 5 ¼ inches) framed. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Passage Illustrated: Mr. Dombey has no time for a mere daughter

When little Florence timidly presented herself, Mr Dombey stopped in his pacing up and down and looked towards her. Had he looked with greater interest and with a father’s eye, he might have read in her keen glance the impulses and fears that made her waver; the passionate desire to run clinging to him, crying, as she hid her face in his embrace, “Oh father, try to love me! there’s no one else!” the dread of a repulse; the fear of being too bold, and of offending him; the pitiable need in which she stood of some assurance and encouragement; and how her overcharged young heart was wandering to find some natural resting-place, for its sorrow and affection.

But he saw nothing of this. He saw her pause irresolutely at the door and look towards him; and he saw no more.

“Come in,” he said, “come in: what is the child afraid of?”

She came in; and after glancing round her for a moment with an uncertain air, stood pressing her small hands hard together, close within the door.

“Come here, Florence,” said her father, coldly. “Do you know who I am?”

“Yes, Papa.”

“Have you nothing to say to me?”

The tears that stood in her eyes as she raised them quickly to his face, were frozen by the expression it wore. She looked down again, and put out her trembling hand.

Mr. Dombey took it loosely in his own, and stood looking down upon her for a moment, as if he knew as little as the child, what to say or do.

“There! Be a good girl,” he said, patting her on the head, and regarding her as it were by stealth with a disturbed and doubtful look. “Go to Richards! Go!”

His little daughter hesitated for another instant as though she would have clung about him still, or had some lingering hope that he might raise her in his arms and kiss her. She looked up in his face once more. He thought how like her expression was then, to what it had been when she looked round at the Doctor — that night — and instinctively dropped her hand and turned away. [Chapter III, "In which Mr. Dombey, as a Man and a Father, is seen at the Head of the Home Establishment," p. 19]

Commentary

The Household Edition illustrators, Barnard and Sheppard, have rather more effectively captured the essence of their subjects than had Phiz, for the British illustrator sharply contrasts the sympathetic Polly and the sharp-tongued maid Susan Nipper, and Sheppard here effectively presents Dombey as cold, aloof, and utterly uncaring about his daughter. The diffident Florence is still distraught, for she has just learned from "Richards" that her mother has died and has just been buried. This moment realised reveals a less pleasant Dombey through his scornful glance and rigid posture as he turns away from his daughter and fails to look at her directly.

In setting up the situation Sheppard has detailed the Dombey drawing-room, with its squat, overstuffed chair accentuating Dombey's height, and the FRench windows implying affluence. The furnishings are otherwise rather spartan, in keeping perhaps with Dombey's dour nature and implying already that the home lacks the touch of "a feminine domestic supervisor."

Relevant Illustrations from the 1846-47 and British Household Editions

Left: Phiz's illustration for the same scene, in which "Richards" (Polly Toddle) manages to obtain Mr. Dombey's permission for Florence to play with Paul, The Dombey Family (October 1846). Right: Fred Barnard's British Household Edition illustration sets up the scene with Mr. Dombey as Susan Nipper tries to dissuade Polly from approaching Mr. Dombey about Florence because the daughter is under her charge, and "Richards" is a mere nurse: "I may be very fond of pennywinkles, Mrs. Richards, but it don't follow that I'm to have 'em for tea." (1877).

Related Material, including Other Illustrated Editions of Dombey and Son (1846-1924)

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Bibliography

Dickens, Charles. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by W. L. Sheppard. The Household Edition. 18 vols. New York: Harper & Co., 1873.

_______. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by F. O. C. Darley and John Gilbert. The Works of Charles Dickens. The Household Edition. 55 vols. New York: Sheldon and Company, 1862. Vols. 1-4.

__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr., and engraved by A. V. S. Anthony. 14 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. III.

_______. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Fred Barnard [62 composite wood-block engravings]. The Works of Charles Dickens. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1877. XV.

Dickens, Charles. Dombey and Son. With illustrations by H. K. Browne. The illustrated library Edition. 2 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, c. 1880. Vol. II.

__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. 61 wood-engravings. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1877. XV.

__________. Dombey and Son> Illustrated by W. H. C. Groome. London and Glasgow, 1900, rpt. 1934. 2 vols. in one.

__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. 9.

__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz"). 8 coloured plates. London and Edinburgh: Caxton and Ballantyne, Hanson, 1910.

__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz"). The Clarendon Edition, ed. Alan Horsman. Oxford: Clarendon, 1974.

"Dombey and Son — Sixty-two Illustrations by Fred Barnard." Scenes and Characters from the Works of Charles Dickens, Being Eight Hundred and Sixty-six Drawings by Fred Barnard, Gordon Thomson, Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz), J. McL. Ralston, J. Mahoney, H. French, Charles Green, E. G. Dalziel, A. B. Frost, F. A. Fraser, and Sir Luke Fildes. London: Chapman and Hall, 1907.

Created 7 January 2022