Mr. and Mrs. Boffin
Sol Eytinge
Wood engraving
7.5 cm wide by 10.1 cm high
Illustration for chapter 5 of Dickens's Our Mutual Friend in the Lee & Shepard (Boston), and Charles T. Dillingham (New York) 1870 Illustrated Household Edition.
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
Having received his literary friend [Wegg] with great cordiality, he conducted him to the interior of the Bower and there presented him to Mrs. Boffin: — a stout lady of a rubicund and cheerful aspect, dressed (to Mr. Wegg's consternation) in a low evening dress of sable satin, and a large black velvet hat and feathers. [34]
Henrietta ("Henerietty") Boffin, as eager to acquire knowledge of the classics of modern literature as her bustling husband, has dressed (or should one say "over-dressed"?) to receive the vistor who will read the "decline and fall off the Rooshan Empire." The manner of representation verges on caricature, but there is none of the cartoon-like playfulness of Eytinge's great American contemporary, John McLenan, illustrator of A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations for Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization in the late eighteen-fifties and early eighteen-sixties.
Only sketchily does Eytinge give us the parlour of The Bower or Harmony Jail, and the clock incorectly registers one o'clock (in the afternoon, one presumes), although it is evening when Wegg calls. Whereas Eytinge depicts Boffin in a suit, the text clearly indicates that Boffin is "in an undress garment of short white smock-frock." One can only assume, therefore, that Eytinge is not introducing us to the elderly couple at the moment of Wegg's arrival — after all, he does not appear in the illustration — but rather earlier that day, when one supposes Noddy Boffin mentioned to his wife that they would be receiving an oral reading that evening. Eytinge's intention, then, appears simply to have been to establish the benign character and mutual devotion of the Boffins, sparkling eyed and youthful in their appreciation of life, despite their age and working-class background.
Last modified 23 October 2010