Mr. Wemmick, Senior, Has Breakfast in Bed by Harry Furniss — illustration for "Great Expectations" (1910)

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Mr. Wemmick, Senior, Has Breakfast in Bed

Harry Furniss

1910

13.9 cm by 9.2 cm (5 ½ by 3 ⅝ inches), framed

Wemmick went into the Aged's room with a clean white cloth, and tied the same under the old gentleman's chin, and put his nightcap on one side, and gave him quite a rakish air. Then he placed his breakfast before him, and said, "All right, ain't you, Aged P.?" To which the cheerful Aged replied, "All right, John, my boy, all right!" — p. 350.

Dickens's Great Expectations, Illustrated Library Edition, facing p. 353.

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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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Passage Realised: Delightful but Irrelevant Character Comedy

He took the toasting-fork and sausage from me as he spoke, and set forth the Aged’s breakfast neatly on a little tray. Previous to placing it before him, he went into the Aged’s room with a clean white cloth, and tied the same under the old gentleman’s chin, and propped him up, and put his nightcap on one side, and gave him quite a rakish air. Then he placed his breakfast before him with great care, and said, “All right, ain’t you, Aged P.?” To which the cheerful Aged replied, “All right, John, my boy, all right!” As there seemed to be a tacit understanding that the Aged was not in a presentable state, and was therefore to be considered invisible, I made a pretence of being in complete ignorance of these proceedings. [Chapter XLV, 350]

Commentary

Furniss has used as his caption for the portrait of the Aged P. a form of the text in Chapter 56, Furniss's caption missing the opening sentence of the paragraph beginning "He took the toasting fork . . . " (350). Like generations of readers before him, Harry Furniss seems to have been delighted by legal clerk John Wemmick's Aged Parent and his close relationship with his grownup son. After Estella's announcement of her intention to marry Pip's romantic rival in Estella tells Pip of her Engagement to Mr. Drummle (Chapter XLIV) the illustrator has focussed on the incidental comedy of Pip's abstractly burning the Aged P.'s breakfast in order to emphasize Dickens's "streaky bacon" of scene construction, as something light-hearted and character-focussed follows the serious and romantic strain of the story.

Other Artists' Renderings of Wemmick's Aged P., 1867 to 1916

Left: F. W. Pailthorpe's Robson and Kerslake scene of the agreeable visit that Pip pays the Wemmicks at Walworth: "Now, Aged Parent, tip us the Paper" (1885). Left of centre: F. W. Pailthorpe's Robson and Kerslake scene of The agreeable visit that Pip pays the Wemmicks at Walworth: "Now, Aged Parent, tip us the Paper" (1885). Right of centre: H. M. Brock's revision of the same scene: "Well, aged parent." said Wemmick, "how am you?", in the Hodder and Stoughton Edition (1916). Right: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s Diamond Edition version, a dual portrait of father and son: Wemmick and "The Aged" (1867).

Left: In the first American serialisation, periodical illustrator John McLenan emphasizes the cozziness of Mr. Wemmick, Sr.'s rooms in The responsible duty of making the toast was delegated to the Aged (27 April 1861). Right: F. A. Fraser's Household Edition version of the same scene: We found the aged heating the poker, with expectant eyes (1876).

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 (2 plates)
Sol Eytinge, Jr. (8 wood engravings)
Marcus Stone (8 wood engravings)
John McLenan (40 wood engravings)
F. A. Fraser in the Household Edition (1876) (30 wood-engravings)
Frederic W. Pailthorpe (21 lithographs)
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. 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.

_____. Great Expectations. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Junior. Diamond Edition. 14 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. XIII.

______. Great Expectations. Volume 6 of the Household Edition. Illustrated by F. A. Fraser. London: Chapman and Hall, 1876.

_____. Great Expectations. Illustrated by Frederic W. Pailthorpe with 17 hand-tinted water-colour lithographs. The Franklin Library. Franklin Center, Pennsylvania: 1979. Based on the Robson and Kerslake (London) edition, 1885.

______. 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 update 25 October 2021