A Warm Corner in the Pig-Market at Boulogne. — Book 7, chap. iv. Extra illustration for Forster's Life of Charles Dickens in the twenty-two volume Household Edition by Fred Barnard (1879). Composite woodblock engraving by the Dalziels, 12.5 by 17.9 cm., or 5 inches high by 7 inches wide, full-page engraving facing page 299, framed. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Passage Illustrated: Dickens Becomes Familiar with Boulogne, 1854
"Outside the old town, an army of workmen are (and have been for a week or so, already) employed upon an immense building which I supposed might be a Fort, or a Monastery, or a Barrack, or other something designed to last for ages. I find it is for the annual fair, which begins on the fifth of August and lasts a fortnight. Almost every Sunday we have a fête, where there is dancing in the open air, and where immense men with prodigious beards revolve on little wooden horses like Italian irons, in what we islanders call a roundabout, by the hour together. But really the good humour and cheerfulness are very delightful. Among the other sights of the place, there is a pig-market every Saturday, perfectly insupportable in its absurdity. An excited French peasant, male or female, with a determined young pig, is the most amazing spectacle. I saw a little Drama enacted yesterday week, the drollery of which was perfect. Dram. Pers. 1. A pretty young woman with short petticoats and trim blue stockings, riding a donkey with two baskets and a pig in each. 2. An ancient farmer in a blouse, driving four pigs, his four in hand, with an enormous whip—and being drawn against walls and into smoking shops by any one of the four. 3. A cart, with an old pig (manacled) looking out of it, and terrifying six hundred and fifty young pigs in the market by his terrific grunts. 4. Collector of Octroi in an immense cocked hat, with a stream of young pigs running, night and day, between his military boots and rendering accounts impossible. 5. Inimitable, confronted by a radiation of elderly pigs, fastened each by one leg to a bunch of stakes in the ground. 6. John Edmund Reade, poet, expressing eternal devotion to and admiration of Landor, unconscious of approaching pig recently escaped from barrow. 7. Priests, peasants, soldiers, &c. &c." [Book VII, chap. iv. "Three Summers at Boulogne. 1853, 1854. and 1856," 299]
Scanned image, 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
Ackroyd, Peter. Dickens: A Biography. London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1990.
Barnard, Fred, et al. Scenes and Characters from the Works of Charles Dickens; being eight hundred and sixty-six drawings by Fred Barnard, Hablot K. Browne (Phiz), J. Mahoney [and others] printed from the original woodblocks engraved for "The Household Edition." London: Chapman & Hall, 1908. P. 584.
The copy of the book from which these pictures were scanned is in the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
[The copy of the book from which these pictures were scanned is in the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.]
Forster, John. The Life of Charles Dickens. London: Chapman & Hall, 1872 and 1874. 3 vols.
Forster, John. The Life of Charles Dickens. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. 22 vols. London: Chapman & Hall, 1879. Vol. XXII.
Created 15 September 2009
Last modified 10 January 2025