"Mr. Stiggins raised his hands, and turned up his eyes" for Dickens's "Pickwick Papers" by Thomas Nast (1873)

Mr. Stiggins raised his hands, and turned up his eyes by Thomas Nast (1873), in Charles Dickens's The Posthumous Papers of The Pickwick Club, Chapter XLV, 266.

Bibliographical Note

Instead of duplicating Phiz's 1837 scene of the Wellers' listening to Mr. Stiggins's harranging sermon, Nast focuses on the moment of Tony Weller's arrival in the snuggery in Chapter XLV, "Descriptive of an affecting interview between Mr. Samuel Weller and a family party," p. 266. Wood-engraving, 3 ⅝ inches high by 5 ¼ inches wide (9.2 cm high by 13.5 cm wide), framed, half-page; referencing text on the same page; descriptive headline: "Grace and Gracelessness" (p. 267). Oddly enough, although Phiz has provided no parallel illustration for executed the same scene in Chapter XLV in the 1874 edition, the Chapman & Hell editors have used uses the same descriptive headline on p. 317 in that chapter.

Passage Illustrated: Stiggins appears in the Fleet

"Mother-in-law," said Sam, politely saluting the lady, "wery much obliged to you for this here wisit. — Shepherd, how air you?"

"Oh, Samuel!" said Mrs. Weller. "This is dreadful."

"Not a bit on it, mum," replied Sam. — "Is it, shepherd?"

Mr. Stiggins raised his hands, and turned up his eyes, until the whites — or rather the yellows — were alone visible; but made no reply in words.

"Is this here gen’l’m’n troubled with any painful complaint?" said Sam, looking to his mother-in-law for explanation.

"The good man is grieved to see you here, Samuel," replied Mrs. Weller.

"Oh, that’s it, is it?" said Sam. "I was afeerd, from his manner, that he might ha’ forgotten to take pepper vith that ‘ere last cowcumber he eat. Set down, Sir, ve make no extra charge for settin’ down, as the king remarked wen he blowed up his ministers."

"Young man," said Mr. Stiggins ostentatiously, ‘I fear you are not softened by imprisonment." [Chapter XLV, "Descriptive of an affecting interview between Mr. Samuel Weller and a family party. Mr. Pickwick makes a tour of the diminutive world he inhabits, and resolves to ix with it in future as little as possible," p. 265]

Commentary

Ever since his initial appearance in the story in chapter ten as the down-to-earth, practical-minded foil to the naive, good-hearted Pickwick in chapter ten (his arrival in the narrative commemorated in Phiz's First Appearance of Mr. Samuel Weller), the plucky, wise-cracking, street-smart Cockney had been a favourite with readers — and a continuing character in the picaresque novel, Sancho Panza to Pickwick's Don Quixote, so to speak. Now he assumes considerable prominence in an illustration. The plate, in fact, makes no reference to Sam's "master" whatsoever, for the characters are entirely below the mercantile Pickwick's social station: Mrs. Weller (left), sobbing; Stiggins (centre) in full rhetorical flight; Sam's father, Tony, nodding off; and Sam, not "cross-legged" as ' indicated in the text, but rather straddling the chair in the Snuggery as if it were a horse. This scene rather the text per se served as Nast's starting point for his own version of the scene in the Snuggery of the Fleet Prison.

The cartoon-like style and heavy lines that characterise Nast's work make the figures look stiff and unnatural, but then Stiggins after all is a mere paste-board likeness of a Puritanical hypocrite who inveighs against the demon rum, but indicates that this species of alcohol is his favourite "tap." Nast obviously wanted to convey Stiggins's strong reaction to seeing Sam as a prisoner in the Fleet. The text makes it clear that Stiggins and Mrs. Weller are unaware that Sam has contrived his own arrest so that he can be present to watch over Pickwick. Sam affects a mock bow to the dissenting minister, whose theatrical, over-the-top response to Sam's indicating rum is not served in the Snuggery is so appropriate to Dickens's conventional Anglican satire of dissenting clergy. Unfortunately Nast offers no background details to suggest that this is indeed the prison's public house. Phiz's translation of the original steel-engraving into the 1874 wood-engraving seems more subtle in the modelling and detailing of the figures, and offers a more characteristic pose for Mr. Stiggins.

Phiz's Versions of the same Scene, 1837 and 1874

Left: Phiz's original August 1837 steel-engraving of the sermonizing alcoholic, The Red-Nosed Man Discourseth (Ch. XLV). Right: Phiz updated the scene for the 1874 Household Edition with more naturalistic modelling of the figures: Mr. Stiggins, getting on his legs as well as he could, proceeded to deliver an edifying discourse for the benefit of the company (p. 329). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

Other artists who illustrated this work, 1836-74

Related Material

Scanned image, colour correction, sizing, 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

Dickens, Charles. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. Engraved by A. V. S. Anthony. The Diamond Edition. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867.

Dickens, Charles. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. The Household Edition. Illustrated by Thomas Nast. New York: Harper and Brothers 1873.

Dickens, Charles. Pickwick Papers. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ('Phiz'). The Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1874.

Dickens, Charles. Pickwick Papers. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne and Others. Edited by Edward Guiliano and Philip Collins. The Annotated Dickens, Volume One. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1986.

Last modified 21 September 2021