"They stood upon the deck of the 'Cautious Clara'." — twenty-third illustration by W. L. Sheppard for Dickens's "Dombey and Son" (American Household Edition, 1873)

They stood upon the deck of the "Cautious Clara" by W. L. Sheppard. Twenty-third illustration for Dickens's Dombey and Son in the American Household Edition (1873), Chapter XXIII, "Florence solitary, and the Midshipman mysterious," p. 141. 10.5 x 13.5 cm (4 ⅛ by 5 ¼ inches) framed. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Passage Illustrated: The First Appearance of Bunsby

Phiz's May 1847 illustration Solemn reference made to Mr. Bunsby.

“Clara a-hoy!” cried the Captain, putting a hand to each side of his mouth.

“A-hoy!” cried a boy, like the Captain’s echo, tumbling up from below.

“Bunsby aboard?” cried the Captain, hailing the boy in a stentorian voice, as if he were half-a-mile off instead of two yards.

“Ay, ay!” cried the boy, in the same tone.

The boy then shoved out a plank to Captain Cuttle, who adjusted it carefully, and led Florence across: returning presently for Miss Nipper. So they stood upon the deck of the Cautious Clara, in whose standing rigging, divers fluttering articles of dress were curing, in company with a few tongues and some mackerel.

Immediately there appeared, coming slowly up above the bulk-head of the cabin, another bulk-head — human, and very large — with one stationary eye in the mahogany face, and one revolving one, on the principle of some lighthouses. This head was decorated with shaggy hair, like oakum, which had no governing inclination towards the north, east, west, or south, but inclined to all four quarters of the compass, and to every point upon it. The head was followed by a perfect desert of chin, and by a shirt-collar and neckerchief, and by a dreadnought pilot-coat, and by a pair of dreadnought pilot-trousers, whereof the waistband was so very broad and high, that it became a succedaneum for a waistcoat: being ornamented near the wearer’s breastbone with some massive wooden buttons, like backgammon men. As the lower portions of these pantaloons became revealed, Bunsby stood confessed; his hands in their pockets, which were of vast size; and his gaze directed, not to Captain Cuttle or the ladies, but the mast-head. [Chapter XXIII, "Florence solitary, and the Midshipman mysterious," 140]

Commentary: Another Old Salt injected into the Cuttle/MacStinger Subplot

As if a single retired seadog did not provide enough comic relief in the Little Midshipman subplot, Dickens now introduces Captain Cuttle's curmudgeonly double, the misanthropic Captain Jack Bunsby, on the deck of his own merchant vessel, The Cautious Clara. In a novel full of sentimental and melodramatic plotting, the marriage subplot involving Cuttle, Bunsby, and the widow Mrs. MacStinger affords plenty of comic relief. As is the case with so many Dickens novels, these brilliant comic creations steal the limelight from the focal characters in the main plot.

From Susan Nipper, her maid, Florence learns that Perch, the company's messenger, has reported that the vessel carrying Walter Gay to the company's outpost in Barbados, The Son and Heir has not arrived, and is feared to have foundered. Florence, strongly attached to Walter as her preserver after her misadventure with Good Mrs. Brown, is distressed at Susan's remark, and is determined to investigate the situation by visiting Sol Gillis at The Little Midshipman. However, when the shop-boy (Rob the Biler, Polly Toodle's eldest child) reports that the proprietor will be out for several hours, Susan and Florence take their hackney-coach to Captain Cuttle's rooms at Brig Place in quest of Gillis and news of Walter. Not having heard anything, the Captain suggests that they consult an old seafaring friend, Bunsby, who possess an infallible knowledge of shipping. Cuttle hops aboard the hackney, and directs the driver to the berth of the Cautious Clara, Bunsby's vessel, moored at Ratcliffe.

Eytinge's humorous study of Bunsby escorting Captain Cuttle's fractious landlady, Mrs. MacStinger and Bunsby.

Since Dickens has offered a detailed description of the phlegmatic old salt, Sheppard might have acted upon it, as his countryman Sol Eytinge, Junior, had done in the 1867 Diamond Edition of the novel. But he does not. Instead, he maintains his focus on Florence, Susan Nipper, and the loquacious Captain Cuttle, placing him at the very centre, with Florence at his shoulder as he raises his hook in salutation. Sheppard has made the gangplank uncomfortably narrow in order to accommodate it within the frame, so that the three visitors seem precariously perched as Bunsby emerges from his cabin below decks. Although Sheppard depicts the neckerchief and seaman's jacket, he leaves the rest of Jack Bunsby to the reader's imagination based on the textual description "a dreadnought pilot-coat, and by a pair of dreadnought pilot-trousers," with which American readers may not have been especially familiar.

Related Material, including Other Illustrated Editions of Dombey and Son (1846-1910)

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Bibliography

Dickens, Charles. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by W. L. Sheppard. The Household Edition. 18 vols. New York: Harper & Co., 1873.

__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by F. O. C. Darley and John Gilbert. The Works of Charles Dickens. The Household Edition. 55 vols. New York: Sheldon and Company, 1862. Vols. 1-4.

__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr., and engraved by A. V. S. Anthony. 14 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. III.

__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Fred Barnard [62 composite wood-block engravings]. The Works of Charles Dickens. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1877. XV.

__________. Dombey and Son. With illustrations by H. K. Browne. The illustrated library Edition. 2 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, c. 1880. II.

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

__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by W. H. C. Groome. London and Glasgow, 1900, rpt. 1934. 2 vols. in one.

__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. IX.

__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz"). 8 coloured plates. London and Edinburgh: Caxton and Ballantyne, Hanson, 1910.

__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz"). The Clarendon Edition, ed. Alan Horsman. Oxford: Clarendon, 1974.

Created 1 February 2022