"Rose" by Harry Furniss — thirty-second illustration for Dickens's "Adventures of Oliver Twist" (1910)

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Rose

Harry Furniss

lithograph from pen-and-ink

1910

14.2 x 9.2 cm, framed

Thirty-second illustration for The Adventures of Oliver Twist in the Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910), facing III, 402 (the illustration bears no extended caption).

Text illustrated: “when one [tear] fell upon the flower over which she bent, and glistened brightly in its cup, making it more beautiful, it seemed as though the outpouring of her fresh young heart, claimed kindred with the loveliest things in nature” (263).

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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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Commentary

Dickens's original illustrator, George Cruikshank, in Bentley's Miscellany seems to have regarded Oliver's aunt, Rose Maylie, as a minor character, depicting her clearly only in The Meeting (Part 20, December 1838) and Rose Maylie and Oliver — The Church Plate (Part 24, April 1839). The present lithograph is not so much Furniss's response to those original engravings with their rather prosaic and passive heroine as to the James Mahoney wood-engraving for Chapter 51 in the first volume of the Household Edition, "Do you know this young lady, sir?" (see below). The monthly plates in Bentley's Miscellany depict Rose only twice, first in the covert meeting under London Bridge between the respectable and the scarlet woman, Rose and Nancy, and then again in the concluding scene at the memorial for Oliver's mother. Whereas Cruikshank, not knowing the entire trajectory of the plot, seems to have underestimated Rose's importance in the story and contributes little through these two plates to Dickens's verbal portraits of Rose, in the Household Edition three illustrations characterise Rose as a sensitive, upper-middle-class beauty: When it became quite dark, and they returned home, the young lady would sit down to the piano, and play some pleasant air (Chapter 32), "A few — a very few — will suffice, Rose,"said the young man, drawing his chair towards her (Chapter 35), and "Do you know this young lady, sir?" (see below). However, in terms of angular, youthful beauty and poise Furniss's Rose far surpasses Mahoney's. Furthermore, Furniss distinguishes his fair heroine, in contrast to the darker, heavier Nancy, by her sensitivity and emotionalism, as she pities Nancy and urges Mr. Brownlow to assist her in escaping from moral degradation in The Meeting under London Bridge (Chapter 46, "The Appointment Kept"). Clearly, Furniss in depicting Rose for the last of her four appearances in his sequence had in mind the following passage from much earlier in the novel, when Dickens introduces her:

The younger lady was in the lovely bloom and spring-time of womanhood; at that age, when, if ever angels be for God’s good purposes enthroned in mortal forms, they may be, without impiety, supposed to abide in such as hers.

She was not past seventeen. Cast in so slight and exquisite a mould; so mild and gentle; so pure and beautiful; that earth seemed not her element, nor its rough creatures her fit companions. The very intelligence that shone in her deep blue eye, and was stamped upon her noble head, seemed scarcely of her age, or of the world; and yet the changing expression of sweetness and good humour, the thousand lights that played about the face, and left no shadow there; above all, the smile, the cheerful, happy smile, were made for Home, and fireside peace and happiness. [Chapter 29, "Has an Introductory Account of the Inmates of the House, To Which Oliver Resorted," 213-14]

In Chapter 35, having received Harry's marriage proposal, Rose apparently renounces her own chance for happiness as she cries at the moment of self-sacrifice that will preserve Harry's political career: "when one [tear] fell upon the flower over which she bent, and glistened brightly in its cup, making it more beautiful, it seemed as though the outpouring of her fresh young heart, claimed kindred with the loveliest things in nature" (263). She is, despite the shadow over her birth, an idealised young woman whose sheer sentiment is in complete contrast to the utter lack of sentiment shown by Fagin, Sikes, and Nancy. As William T. Lankford suggests, the slender, physically attractive and impeccably dressed Rose Maylie is the binary opposite to the slovenly, agressive, duplicitous Nancy seen earlier in the novel. Alike in age, Rose and Nancy remain opposites, even after Nancy informs against Monks, for she remains loyal to her criminal associates to the last, despite knowing that they would not hesitate to kill her if they believed she had betrayed them. Rose's sudden illness threatens Oliver's implicit belief in the beneficent powers of Providence (just as the death of Nancy is both senseless and unmerited), but Rose's recovery in her natural milieu, the English countryside, at least temporarily vindicates that trust in natural justice. In the present lithograph, Furniss detaches Rose from any particular scene since the portrait has no quotation: she is presented as the human analogue of the rose.

Relevant Illustrations from the original 1837-38 serial and later editions

Left: Cruikshank's The Meeting (Part 20, December 1838). Centre: from Furniss's earlier illustration Rose and Nancy (1910). Right: Cruikshank's final illustration, in which Rose looks rather like George Eliot, Rose Maylie and Oliver — The Church Plate (Part 24, April 1839).

Above: James Mahoney's 1871 engraving of the momentous interview with Oliver's devious half-brother, Monks, "Do you know this young lady, sir?"

Bibliography

Darley, Felix Octavius Carr. Character Sketches from Dickens. Philadelphia: Porter and Coates, 1888.

Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998.

Dickens, Charles. The Adventures of Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress. Illustrated by George Cruikshank. London: Bradbury and Evans; Chapman and Hall, 1838; rpt. with revisions 1846.

_____. Oliver Twist. Works of Charles Dickens. Household Edition. 55 vols. Illustrated by F. O. C. Darley and John Gilbert. New York: Sheldon and Co., 1865.

_____. Oliver Twist. Works of Charles Dickens. Diamond Edition. 14 vols. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867.

_____. Oliver Twist. Works of Charles Dickens. Household Edition. 22 vols. Illustrated by James Mahoney. London: Chapman and Hall, 1871. Vol. I.

_____. The Adventures of Oliver Twist. Works of Charles Dickens. Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. London: Educational Book Company, 1910. Vol. III.

_____. The Adventures of Oliver Twist. Works of Charles Dickens. The Waverley Edition. Illustrated by Charles Pears. London: Waverley, 1912.

_____.The Letters of Charles Dickens. Ed. Graham Storey, Kathleen Tillotson, and Angus Eassone. The Pilgrim Edition. Oxford: Clarendon, 1965. Vol. I (1820-1839).

"Drawing of Charles Dickens reading 'Sikes and Nancy' on 16 March 1870." Unknown artist. The Charles Dickens Museum. The British Library, All Discovering Literature: Romantics and Victorians Collection. https://www.bl/uk/collection-items/drawing-of-dickens-reading-sikes-and-nancy-on-16-march-1870

Forster, John. "Oliver Twist 1838." The Life of Charles Dickens. Ed. B. W. Matz. The Memorial Edition. 2 vols. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1911. Vol. I, Book 2, Chapter 3.

Kyd (Clayton J. Clarke). Characters from Dickens. Nottingham: John Player & Sons, 1910.

Lankford, William T. "The Evolving Form of Oliver Twist. Readings on Charles Dickens "Oliver Twist". Greenhaven Literary Companion to British Literature. Ed. Jill Karson. San Diego: Greenhaven, 2001, 76-90. Rpt. from PMLA, January 1978.

Pailthorpe, Frderick W. (Illustrator). Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist. London: Robson & Kerslake, 1886. Set No. 118 (coloured) of 200 sets of proof impressions.

Vann, J. Don. "Oliver Twist." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: The Modern Language Association, 1985, 62-63.

Created 13 March 2015

Last modified 18 February 2020