"Good b'ye, dear! God bless you!"
Frederic W. Pailthorpe
1886
9 cm high by 7.8 cm wide (3 ½ inches by 3 inches)
Dickens's Oliver Twist
[Click on image to enlarge it. See below for passage illustrated, commentary and comparisons with other illustrators' work; mouse over the text for links.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
Passage Illustrated: A Tearful Farewell at Mrs. Mann's Fence
". . . “I am running away. They beat and ill-use me, Dick; and I am going to seek my fortune, some long way off. I don’t know where. How pale you are!”
“I heard the doctor tell them I was dying,” replied the child with a faint smile. “I am very glad to see you, dear; but don’t stop, don’t stop!”
“Yes, yes, I will, to say good-b’ye to you,” replied Oliver. “I shall see you again, Dick. I know I shall! You will be well and happy!”
“I hope so,” replied the child. “After I am dead, but not before. I know the doctor must be right, Oliver, because I dream so much of Heaven, and Angels, and kind faces that I never see when I am awake. Kiss me,” said the child, climbing up the low gate, and flinging his little arms round Oliver’s neck. “Good-b’ye, dear! God bless you!”
The blessing was from a young child’s lips, but it was the first that Oliver had ever heard invoked upon his head; and through the struggles and sufferings, and troubles and changes, of his after life, he never once forgot it. [Chapter VII, "Oliver Continues Refractory," p. 37 in the 1846 edition]
Commentary: The Last of the Subjects not treated by Cruikshank
Pailthorpe here completes his grangerising phase, illustrating those incidents that George Cruikshank had not touched on in these opening chapters. The result is a disproportionate number of illustrations in the 1886 series featuring scenes from the early part of the novel, with an emphasis on the undertaker's establishment (two scenes) and Mrs. Mann's baby farm (two scenes). Notably absent is any allusion to the celebrated workhouse incident which became the basis for the 1846 frontispiece, Oliver Asks For More, originally in the February 1837, initial instalment in Bentley's Miscellany. Oliver's obscure childhood, then, looms large in Pailthorpe's twenty-one illustration program. The present illustration represents what is known as a "curtain scene," since it closes (as it were) the theatrical curtain on this instalment and this chapter.
Having wished his only friend in the world, Little Dick, a tearful farewell at Mrs. Mann's baby-farm on the outskirts of town, Oliver now strikes out on the high road to London, like so many picaresque heroes before him — including Henry Fielding's Tom Jones and Sir Walter Scott's Jeanie Deanes (figures who, like Smollett's Roderick Random and Peregrine Pickle, Dickens encountered in his boyhood reading). Aside from the focal embrace, the engraving features some interesting detailing: the luxuriantly overgrown garden full of weeds and flowers (perhaps a metaphor for Oliver's childhood), and a foolish puppy chasing a wagon up the road, an analogue for Oliver's fleeing the place where he was born for an unknown future.
Parallel Illustrations from Three Other Editions (1867, 1871, and 1910)
Left: Harry Furniss's psychological realisation of Oliver's trepidations as he sets out on the high road for London: Oliver's Flight to London (1910). Centre: James Mahoney's Household Edition title-page vignette Oliver at the Milestone prepares the reader from the outset for Oliver's escaping the Sowerberrys (1871). Right: Eytinge's Oliver and Little Dick from the Diamond Edition (1867).
Related Material
- Oliver Twist Illustrated, 1837-1910
- Oliver Twist as a Triple-Decker
- Oliver untainted by evil
- Like Martin Chuzzlewit, it agitates for social reform
Bibliography
Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. New York and Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1990.
Cohen, Jane Rabb. "George Cruikshank." Charles Dickens and His Original Illustrators. Columbus: Ohio State U. P., 1980. Pp. 15-38.
Darley, Felix Octavius Carr. Character Sketches from Dickens. Philadelphia: Porter and Coates, 1888.
Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998.
Dickens, Charles. The Adventures of Oliver Twist. Illustrated by George Cruikshank. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1838; Chapman and Hall, 1846.
_______. The Letters of Charles Dickens. Ed. Graham Storey, Kathleen Tillotson, and Angus Eassone. The Pilgrim Edition. Oxford: Clarendon, 1965. Vol. 1 (1820-1839).
_______. Oliver Twist. Works of Charles Dickens. Household Edition. 55 vols. Illustrated by F. O. C. Darley and John Gilbert. New York: Sheldon and Co., 1865.
_______. Oliver Twist. Works of Charles Dickens. Diamond Edition. 14 vols. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867. Vol. XI.
_______. The Adventures of Oliver Twist. Works of Charles Dickens. Household Edition. 22 vols. Illustrated by James Mahoney. London: Chapman and Hall, 1871. Vol. I.
_______. Oliver Twist. Works of Charles Dickens. Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. London: Educational Book Company, 1910. Vol. III.
_______. Oliver Twist. Works of Charles Dickens. The Waverley Edition of the Works of Charles Dickens. Illustrated by Charles Pears. London: Waverley, 1912.
Grego, Joseph (intro). Cruikshank's Water Colours. [27 Oliver Twist illustrations, including the wrapper and the 13-vignette title-page produced for F. W. Cosens; 20 plates for William Harrison Ainsworth's The Miser's Daughter: A Tale of the Year 1774; 20 plates plus the proofcover the work for W. H. Maxwell's History of the Irish Rebellion in 1798 and Emmetts Insurrection in 1803]. London: A & C Black, 1903. OT = pp. 1-106]. Book in the Rare Book Collection of the University of Toronto.
_______. Oliver Twist. Works of Charles Dickens. The Waverley Edition of the Works of Charles Dickens. Illustrated by Charles Pears. London: Waverley, 1912.
Pailthorpe, Frederic W. (Illustrator). Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist. London: Robson & Kerslake, 1886. Set No. 118 (coloured) of 200 sets of proof impressions.
Created 11 February 2015 Last modified 23 November 2021