"Gone!" roared the Captain by W. L. Sheppard. Twenty-fourth illustration for Dickens's Dombey and Son in the American Household Edition (1873), Chapter XXV, "Strange News of Uncle Sol," p. 148. 10.5 x 13.7 cm (4 ⅛ by 5 ¼ inches) framed. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Passage Illustrated: Captain Cuttle confronts the shifty shop-boy
Eytinge's study of Rob and his pigeons on the rooftop: Rob the Grinder (1867).
“Do you mean, tell you, Captain?” asked Rob, who had been greatly impressed by these precautions.
“Ay!” said the Captain.
“Well, Sir,” said Rob, “I ain’t got much to tell. But look here!”
Rob produced a bundle of keys. The Captain surveyed them, remained in his corner, and surveyed the messenger.
“And look here!” pursued Rob.
The boy produced a sealed packet, which Captain Cuttle stared at as he had stared at the keys.
“When I woke this morning, Captain,” said Rob, “which was about a quarter after five, I found these on my pillow. The shop-door was unbolted and unlocked, and Mr Gills gone.”
“Gone!” roared the Captain.
“Flowed, Sir,” returned Rob.
The Captain’s voice was so tremendous, and he came out of his corner with such way on him, that Rob retreated before him into another corner: holding out the keys and packet, to prevent himself from being run down. [Chapter XXV, "Strange News of Uncle Sol," 148]
Commentary: Captain Cuttle takes up residence at The Little Midshipman
In Chapter 25, things go from bad (the disappearance of the ship, The Son and Heir, carrying Walter Gay to Barbados) to worse as Sol Gillis now disappears. Captain Cuttle is awakened by Rob Toodle's knocking on his door at Mrs. MacStinger's rooming-house. Rob tells the Captain that his friend Sol has departed, leaving him with a packet of papers marked “For Captain Cuttle” and a bunch of keys to the nautical instrument shop, The Little Midshipman. Inside the packet, the Captain finds Gillis's will and a note on the outside asking him not to open it unless a year has passed or Walter has been found. Sol in the note cautions Cuttle against coming to look for him. He explains that he has discharged his debt to Dombey and Son. Finally, he asserts that he values the Captain, and urges Cuttle to remember him always as a loyal friend. Cuttle is concerned that Gillis has committed suicide in his grief over Walter's being lost at sea. Although the Captain determines to search the city for Sol or his body, after a week, Captain Cuttle gives up, and decides to take over the shop and live in Sol’s house so that he will be on the spot when or if the instrument-maker returns.
Related Illustration in the British Household Edition (1877)
Fred Barnard's version of precisely the same moment in the later British Household Edition: The Captain's voice was so tremendous, and came out of his corner with such way on him, that Rob retreated before him into another corner: holding out the keys and packet, to prevent himself from being run down..
Related Material, including Other Illustrated Editions of Dombey and Son (1846-1910)
- Hablot Knight Browne's 40 original serial steel engravings for the serial (October, 1846, through April, 1848)
- Dombey and Son (homepage)
- 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 British Household Edition (1877)
- The Harper and Brothers & Chapman and Hall Household Editions
- Harold Copping's seven illustrations for Mary Angela Dickens's Children's Stories from Dickens (1893)
- W. H. Ç. Groome's illustrations of the Collins Pocket Edition of Dombey and Son (1900, rpt. 1934)
- Kyd's five Player's Cigarette Card watercolours (1910)
- Harry Furniss's 29 illustrations for the Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910)
Scanned image and text 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 it and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
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 3 February 2022