"The Characters in the Story — Furniss's engraved title-page for Dickens's "Sketches by Boz" (1910)

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The Characters in the Story

Harry Furniss

1910

14.2 x 9.8 cm vignetted

Dickens's Sketches by Boz,The Charles Dickens Library Edition, facing I, the frontispiece.

In the Charles Dickens Library Edition, Furniss complements his usual engraved title-page, Characters in the Story, with twenty-six lively illustrations of the collection's characters and situations. He foils the thumbnails of the cavalcade of Dickens characters from the novels and Christmas Books with an innovative treatment of The Election of Beadle. [Commentary continues below.]

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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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Commentary

Apparently Furniss thought it fitting to recall significant figures from his substantial body of illustrations for the Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910) rather than depict such memorable characters from Sketches by Boz as the Parish Beadle, the Toast-master from "Public Dinners," Horatio Sparkins, and Nicodemus Dumps (all of whom appear in his full-page drawings). Since these thumbnails in the margins are entirely based on the regular illustrations for the full-length novels, the astute reader will not find among their ranks a single character from the 1839 anthology, but will readily identify such iconic figures as Wackford Squeers from Nicholas Nickleby (upper left) and Miss Havisham from Great Expectations (left of centre at the bottom), matching exactly their forms and poses in the full-page plates.

Furniss has once again demonstrated his thorough knowledge of the Dickens canon, but not the particular Dickens text. Pickwick bows to the reader and doffs his hat at the top, centre; Mr. Micawber shows David Copperfield the sights of London in the right margin; at the bottom, centre, Scrooge settles down to his gruel as Marley's Ghost is about to appear; and in the left margin the enthusiastic tour guide, torch in hand, beckons Dickens and his party forward through the Roman catacombs in a memorable scene from Pictures from Italy (1846).

Relevant Frontispieces and Title-Pages for this Novel (1839 through 1876)

George Cruikshank's Half-title in the June 1839 Edition
O. C. Darley's Frontispiece in the New York edition (Vol. 1, 1865)
O. C. Darley's Frontispiece in the New York edition (Vol. 2, 1864)
Fred Barnard's Title-page & Vignette in the British Household Edition (1876)
A. B. Frost's Frontispiece in the American Household Edition (1877)
A. B. Frost's Title-page vignette in the American Household Edition (1877)

Bibliography

Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. Oxford and New York: Oxford U. P., 1988.

Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998.

Dickens, Charles. Sketches by Boz. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book Company, 1910. Vol. 1, 358-69.

Hammerton, J. A. "Chapter 9: Sketches By Boz." The Dickens Picture-Book. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. XVII, 55-97.

Created 22 November 2019

Last modified 6 February 2020