Headnote vignette for Book II, Chapter 3 — illustration for Dickens's "A Tale of Two Cities," by John McLenan in "Harper's Weekly" (11 June 1859)

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Headnote vignette

John McLenan

11 June 1859

7 cm high by 4.3 cm wide (3 inches by 1 ¾ inches)

Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, Book II, Chapter 3, "A Disappointment."

Harper's Weekly (11 June 1859): Vol. III, No. 28, p. 381. This text in the sixth installment previously appeared in the UK in All the Year Round on 4 June 1859.

The illustrations appearing here are courtesy of the E. J. Pratt Fine Arts Library, University of Toronto, and the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, University of British Columbia.

Comment: The Curious Resemblance between the Accused and his Attorney.

The headnote vignette depicts the point in the narrative after which we — and those in London's Old Bailey courtroom — have discovered the identical appearances of attorney Sydney Carton and the accused, Charles Darnay; that earlier discovery is depicted in the instalment's main illustration, and in Phiz's The Likeness (July 1859).

Mr. Carton, who had so long sat looking at the ceiling of the court, changed neither his place nor his attitude, even in this excitement. While his teamed friend, Mr. Stryver, massing his papers before him, whispered with those who sat near, and from time to time glanced anxiously at the jury; while all the spectators moved more or less, and grouped themselves anew; while even my Lord himself arose from his seat, and slowly paced up and down his platform, not unattended by a suspicion in the minds of the audience that his state was feverish; this one man sat leaning back, with his torn gown half off him, his untidy wig put on just as it had happened to fight on his head after its removal, his hands in his pockets, and his eyes on the ceiling as they had been all day. Something especially reckless in his demeanour, not only gave him a disreputable look, but so diminished the strong resemblance he undoubtedly bore to the prisoner (which his momentary earnestness, when they were compared together, had strengthened), that many of the lookers-on, taking note of him now, said to one another they would hardly have thought the two were so alike. [Book the Second — "The Golden Thread," Chapter III, "A Disappointment," 382]

Other Illustrated Editions (1859-1910)

Related Material

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Bibliography

Allingham, Philip V. "Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities (1859) Illustrated: A Critical Reassessment of Hablot Knight Browne's Accompanying Plates." Dickens Studies. 33 (2003): 109-158.

Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities. Illustrated by John McLenan. Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization, 7 May through 3 December 1859.

_______. A Tale of Two Cities. Illustrated by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, November 1859.

_______. A Tale of Two Cities. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. 16 vols. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867. XIII.

_______. A Tale of Two Cities. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1874. VIII.

_______. A Tale of Two Cities: A story of the French Revolution. Project Gutenberg e-text by Judith Boss, Omaha, Nebraska. Release Date: September 25, 2004 [EBook #98].

Created 26 November 2007

Last modified 25 November 2025