"Oh, Tom! Tell Me the Truth!" by Charles S. Reinhart. 1870. 13.2 cm wide by 10.3 cm high (horizontally mounted, with text above and below on a page 24 cm high by 16.2 cm wide).
This plate illustrates Book Two, Chapter Eight, "Explosion," in Charles Dickens's Hard Times, which appeared in American Household Edition, 1870. Page 190.
Commentary by Philip V. Allingham
Louisa, in the posture of the fallen woman from melodrama, pleads with Tom (whom she gives a knowing look) to tell her the truth about the bank robbery. The time, as the blackness of the sky with just a hint of light on the horizon, is the wee hours of the morning; as the text below comments, "It was too dark for either to see the other's face" (190), but we, God-like viewers and readers, can see Louisa's reasonably well. Hair down and dressed (apparently) in a nightgown and "loose robe" (189), she is keeling beside the bed, almost in prayer, her hands clutching Tom's right hand, rather than, as in the text, disposing her arms about his neck, "his face to hers." Thus, Reinhart has censored slightly the text he is illustrating, shying away from depicting the intensity of Louisa's love for her brother. On the other hand, her dressing gown is anything but "loose" around the bodice.
Last modified 22 September 2002