Two Sides of the Story: Charles Dickens and his Illustrators

Look at the titlepage of Dickens’ first book. A balloon rises into the sky (the publisher was cashing in on the current craze for balloon-flights). From its basket two figures lean out, waving flags. They seem to have equal status. One is the author; the other his illustrator, the great George Cruikshank.

But Dickens’ pen-name (Boz) is huge; Cruikshank’s name below is much smaller. Already the relationship between author and artist is ambiguous, despite the fact that in the case of this, Dickens’ literary debut, it still remained relatively deferential on the writer’s part. Cruikshank was still much more famous than the aspiring young literary novice.

Focusing mainly on just one year, 1836, Fay Shaefer’s brilliant, fascinating and well-researched talk explored the extraordinary tensions that played out over many decades. Sometimes that relationship could be amicable; but frequently it was so fractious that the results could be ill-fated, and even positively tragic. One poor artist even went so far as to blow his brains out after a verbal shellacking from Dickens, a man whose ego was such that he brooked no opposition. Dickens was certainly a genius; but he was also a bit of a control freak.

Illustrations were important in the 19th century; though the literacy rate markedly improved during Dickens’ lifetime, in the 1840s it was still only 50%. Since his books were not just aimed at the middle and upper classes, many lower middle class and working class readers needed to be helped with pictures to accompany the text.

No fewer than 18 graphic artists contributed to his success as an author, providing him with over 900 illustrations.

1836 was the year that propelled Dickens to literary stardom. Only one of the two books associated with that year — Sketches by Boz and The Pickwick Papers — appeared in its entirety. Both were originally published in a serial and fragmentary form: ‘Sketches by Boz’ was based on a number of journalistic pieces drawn from various newspapers and periodicals between 1833 and 1836. The Pickwick Papers came out, chapter by chapter, from the publishing house of Chapman and Hall, who had commissioned it; and it was only published in book form a year later, in 1837, once the whole series had been completed.

But, as Fay Shaefer pointed out, it had originally just been intended to accompany some comic ‘cockney sporting plates’ by the hapless artist Robert Seymour. He’d probably hoped for a mutually beneficial arrangement; but the hugely energetic and egomaniacal Dickens proceeded to go his own way and at his own rate; with the result that Seymour was effectively trampled to death by the juggernaut thus being unleashed on the Victorian reading public. He it was who’d become so demoralized by Dickens’ constant complaints that he felt driven to end his own life. The artist who took his place, Robert Buss, fared a littlebetter, but only for a while. He was unceremoniously sacked after a single instalment. ‘Phiz’ (Hablot Knight Browne) took over; and, astonishingly, he and Dickens somehow managed to get on very well indeed for a further nine books. It helped that ‘Phiz’ was some years younger, and could therefore be kept in line.

We were shown in Powerpoint slide after slide how this artist’s work developed over subsequent decades, sometimes from edition to edition of the same work of fiction, as individual plates were redesigned and improved. He was even occasionally allowed to sneak in creative details of his own, unsupported by the great man’s text.

Other illustrators who worked with Dickens included George Cattermole, Daniel Maclise, John Leech, Frank and Marcus Stone, the fine Victorian painter Luke Fildes, Richard Doyle (Conan Doyle’s father), the great Samuel Palmer, Edwin Landseer (just one illustration), and John Tenniel, of Alice in Wonderland fame.

The depth and detail contained within this relatively short talk were truly impressive; to squeeze so much information and entertainment into just a single hour showed considerable skill on the part of our learned and eloquent speaker.

KEVIN MAYNARD