"The Captain turned his back, and bent his head down on the little chimney-piece." — twenty-ninth illustration by W. L. Sheppard for Dickens's "Dombey and Son" (American Household Edition, 1873)

The Captain turned his back, and bent his head down on the little chimney-piece by W. L. Sheppard. Twenty-ninth illustration for Dickens's Dombey and Son in the American Household Edition (1873), Chapter XXXII, "The Wooden Midshipman Goes to Pieces," p. 191. 9.4 x 13.5 cm (3 ⅝ by 5 ¼ inches) framed. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Passage Illustrated: Captain Cuttle receives bad news via Mr. Toots

Eytinge's study of the genial sailor whom Sol Gills has suddenly left in charge of his shop: Captain Cuttle (1867).

“Ay!” cried the Captain, striking his clenched hand on the table. “Heave ahead, my lad!”

“— latitude,” repeated Mr. Toots, with a startled glance at the Captain, “and longitude so-and-so, — ‘the look-out observed, half an hour before sunset, some fragments of a wreck, drifting at about the distance of a mile. The weather being clear, and the barque making no way, a boat was hoisted out, with orders to inspect the same, when they were found to consist of sundry large spars, and a part of the main rigging of an English brig, of about five hundred tons burden, together with a portion of the stem on which the words and letters “Son and H —” were yet plainly legible. No vestige of any dead body was to be seen upon the floating fragments. Log of the Defiance states, that a breeze springing up in the night, the wreck was seen no more. There can be no doubt that all surmises as to the fate of the missing vessel, the Son and Heir, port of London, bound for Barbados, are now set at rest for ever; that she broke up in the last hurricane; and that every soul on board perished.’”

Captain Cuttle, like all mankind, little knew how much hope had survived within him under discouragement, until he felt its death-shock. During the reading of the paragraph, and for a minute or two afterwards, he sat with his gaze fixed on the modest Mr. Toots, like a man entranced; then, suddenly rising, and putting on his glazed hat, which, in his visitor’s honour, he had laid upon the table, the Captain turned his back, and bent his head down on the little chimneypiece. [Chapter XXXII, "The Wooden Midshipman Goes to Pieces," 191]

Commentary: Another loss intensifies the mordant melodrama

Clayton J. Clarke's watercolour study of the genial sailor: Captain Cuttle (1910).

All of Dickens's Dombey and Son illustrators have the task of presenting the main plot in these chapters (Dombey's marrying Edith Granger) while maintaining interest in the Walter Gay subplot, the apparent loss in the Atlantic or Caribbean of Dombey's merchant ship the Son and Heir, the unknown fate of Walter, feared dead, and the mysterious disappearance of his uncle, Sol Gills.

In the Sheppard illustration, we are in the parlour at the back of The Little Midshipman. James Carker has just ejected Captain Cuttle from the Dombey offices after confirming the reports of the loss of Dombey's ship. Toots has arrived to confirm the reports that Florence has heard about the loss of the ship, and is downcast. The open door reveals Toots's constant companion and pugilistic instructor, The Game Chicken, seated beside Rob the Grinder, whom Carker has installed at the shop in order to gain intelligence of what passes there. However, Sheppard's focus is the doubly distraught Captain Cuttle, who holds in his hand Sol Gills' letter charging him with running the shop.

Barnard's, Kyd's, and Furniss's Cuttle Plates (1867, 1877, 1910)

Left: Phiz's title-page vignette recalls Captain Cuttle's custodianship of Sol Gills' shop: Rob the Grinder Reading with Captain Cuttle, in serial with the last number, April 1848. Left of centre: Clayton J. Clarke's Player's Cigarette Card No. 25 watercolour study: Capt. Cuttle (1910). Right of centre: Harry Furniss's realisation of Carker's cruel treatment of the Captain: Captain Cuttle and Mr. Carker (1910). Right: Barnard's realisation of Cuttle's processing the disastrous news: And reading softly to himself, in the little back-parlour, and stopping now and then to wipe his eyes, the captain, in a true and simple spirit, committed Walter's body to the deep (1877).

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 12 February 2022