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Molly Shows Her Wrists
Harry Furniss
1910
7.6 x 3.8 inches
Molly brought her other hand from behind her, and held the two out side by side. As she did so, she took her eyes from Mr. Jaggers, and turned them watchfully on every one of the rest of us in succession." — p. 202.
Dickens's Great Expectations, Library Edition, facing p. 208.
[Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
“If you talk of strength,” said Mr. Jaggers, “I’ll show you a wrist. Molly, let them see your wrist.”
Her entrapped hand was on the table, but she had already put her other hand behind her waist. “Master,” she said, in a low voice, with her eyes attentively and entreatingly fixed upon him. “Don’t.”
“I’ll show you a wrist,” repeated Mr. Jaggers, with an immovable determination to show it. “Molly, let them see your wrist.”
“Master,” she again murmured. “Please!”
“Molly,” said Mr. Jaggers, not looking at her, but obstinately looking at the opposite side of the room, “let them see both your wrists. Show them. Come!”
He took his hand from hers, and turned that wrist up on the table. She brought her other hand from behind her, and held the two out side by side. The last wrist was much disfigured, — deeply scarred and scarred across and across. When she held her hands out she took her eyes from Mr. Jaggers, and turned them watchfully on every one of the rest of us in succession.
“There’s power here,” said Mr. Jaggers, coolly tracing out the sinews with his forefinger. “Very few men have the power of wrist that this woman has. It’s remarkable what mere force of grip there is in these hands. I have had occasion to notice many hands; but I never saw stronger in that respect, man’s or woman’s, than these.”
While he said these words in a leisurely, critical style, she continued to look at every one of us in regular succession as we sat. The moment he ceased, she looked at him again. “That’ll do, Molly,” said Mr. Jaggers, giving her a slight nod; “you have been admired, and can go.” She withdrew her hands and went out of the room, and Mr. Jaggers, putting the decanters on from his dumb-waiter, filled his glass and passed round the wine. [Chapter XXVI, p. 202]
Furniss had probably never seen the only previous illustration depicting Molly, Jaggers' maid with the criminal past, which appeared in Harper's Weekly in 1861. In the John Mclenan periodical illustration, Jaggers exhibits his maid's strength to his dinner guests, Pip, Herbert, and Drummle, at the dinner table in Jaggers' Gerard Street rooms. Her appearance is otherwise unremarkable and indeed somewhat feminine in the contemporary sense with her full skirt, apron, and flowing curls. In the Maclenan treatment, Jaggers does not even turn his head, so that the caption seems to carry most of the illustration's meaning. He certainly does not "clap his large hand on the housekeeper's, like a trap, as she stretches it across the table" (202). Otherwise, Furniss's version, is quite different: he gives us no context (the dinner party of Jaggers's young gentlemen clients), and includes no background details: awkwardly and self-consciously, Molly holds out her wrists to the reader, but, as in the 1861 version, the artist no suggestion of disfigurement ("deeply scarred and scarred across and across") resulting from Molly's once having been shackled as a felon destined for transportation. Despite her obvious reluctance in the text, in both illustrations she passively complies with her employer's demand that she exhibit her wrists.
Above: In the first American serialisation, periodical illustrator John McLenan emphasizes the context in which Jaggers has his maid reveal her physical strength, thereby hinting at her criminal past: "Molly, let them see both your wrists. Show them. Come!" (16 March 1861).
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. Illustrated by John McLenan. [The First American Edition]. Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization, Vols. IV: 740 through V: 495 (24 November 1860-3 August 1861).
______. ("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. Illustrated by Marcus Stone. The Illustrated Library Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1862. Rpt. in The Nonesuch Dickens, Great Expectations and Hard Times. London: Nonesuch, 1937; Overlook and Worth Presses, 2005.
______. A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. 16 vols. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867.
______. Great Expectations. Volume 6 of the Household Edition. Illustrated by F. A. Fraser. London: Chapman and Hall, 1876.
______. Great Expectations. The Gadshill Edition. Illustrated by Charles Green. London: Chapman and Hall, 1898.
______. Great Expectations. The Grande Luxe Edition, ed. Richard Garnett. Illustrated by Clayton J. Clarke ('Kyd'). London: Merrill and Baker, 1900.
______. Great Expectations. "With 28 Original Plates by Harry Furniss." Volume 14 of the Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book Co., 1910.
Paroissien, David. The Companion to "Great Expectations." Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 2000.
Created 16 February 2007 last updated 17 October 2021