"Alice Brown and Her Mother" by Harry Furniss — eighteenth illustration for Dickens's "Dombey and Son" (1910)

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Alice Brown and Her Mother

Harry Furniss

1910

13.4 x 9 cm, vignetted

Dickens's Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son: Wholesale, Retail, and for Exportation, the Charles Dickens Library Edition, IX, facing 480.

After some quarter of an hour's walking, the old woman, spent and out of breath, ventured to hold by her skirts; but she ventured no more, and they travelled on in silence through the wet and gloom.

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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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Passage Illustrated: A Mother and Daughter Reunion

"Give me back the money, or you’ll be hurt."

She forced it from the old woman’s hand as she spoke, and utterly indifferent to her complainings and entreaties, threw on the garments she had taken off, and hurried out, with headlong speed.

The mother followed, limping after her as she could, and expostulating with no more effect upon her than upon the wind and rain and darkness that encompassed them. Obdurate and fierce in her own purpose, and indifferent to all besides, the daughter defied the weather and the distance, as if she had known no travel or fatigue, and made for the house where she had been relieved. After some quarter of an hour’s walking, the old woman, spent and out of breath, ventured to hold by her skirts; but she ventured no more, and they travelled on in silence through the wet and gloom. If the mother now and then uttered a word of complaint, she stifled it lest her daughter should break away from her and leave her behind; and the daughter was dumb. [Chapter 34, "Another Mother and Daughter," 506]

Parallel Scene from The Initial Serial and Household Editions (1847 and 1877)

Left: Phiz's dramatisation of the meeting of the Dombeys, Alice, and her mother later in the chapter, The Rejected Alms (August 1847). Left of centre: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s study of the beautiful daughter and the witch-like mother: Mrs. Brown and Alice (1867). Right of centre: Fred Barnard's contrasting the beauty of the rebel with the repulsiveness of her wicked, aged parent: "She's come back harder than she went!" cried the mother, looking up in her face, and still holding to her knees (1877). Right: Sir John Gilbert's frontispiece for the Sheldon & Co. third volume of the novel (1862): "It's my handsome daughter, living and come back," she screamed again.

Related Material, including Other Illustrated Editions of Dombey and Son

Dombey and Son (homepage)
Phiz's Illustrations for Dombey and Son, Wholesale Retail & for Exportation (Oct. 1846 - April 1848)
O. C. Darley's Frontispiece in the New York edition (Vol. 1, 1862)
O. C. Darley's Frontispiece in the New York edition (Vol. 2, 1862)
O. C. Darley's Frontispiece in the New York edition (Vol. 3, 1862)
Sol Eytinge, Junior's 16 Diamond Edition Illustrations (1867)
Fred Barnard's 61 illustrations for the Household Edition (1872)
Kyd's five Player's Cigarette Cards, 1910

Bibliography

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

_______. Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son: Wholesale, Retail, and for Exportation. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book Company, 1910. IX.

Last modified 3 January 2021