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Jeremiah Flintwich and Mrs. Clennam
Harry Furniss
1910
14.3 x 6.7 cm vignetted
Dickens's Little Dorrit, in The Charles Dickens Library Edition, Book the First, "Poverty," Chapter 5, "Family Affairs," facing XII, 48.
[Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
He put his hands to the back of the wheeled chair, and muttering to himself, slowly wheeled his mistress back to her cabinet. "Now," he resumed, standing behind her: "in case I should go away leaving things half done, and so should be wanted again when you come to the other half and get into one of your flights, has Arthur told you what he means to do about the business?"
"He has relinquished it."
"In favour of nobody, I suppose?"
Mrs. Clennam glanced at her son, leaning against one of the windows. He observed the look and said, "To my mother, of course. She does what she pleases." [Book the First, "Poverty," Chapter 5, "Family Affairs," 53]
Furniss, perhaps at J. A. Hammerton's suggestion, has provided the following detailed subtitle or caption for this lithograph from pen-and-ink: He slowly wheeled his mistress back to her cabinet. "Now," he said, "in case I should go away leaving things half done, has Arthur told you what he means to do about the business?" — Dorrit, p. 53.
Furniss so concentrates on contrasting the somewhat crude man of business with his employer and partner, the far more subtle Mrs. Clennam, that he omits entirely the third party in the conversation, the recently returned Arthur Clennam. The scene quickly establishes that there is no love lost between the dutiful Arthur and chilly parent, preparing readers for the plot secret that she is not his "natural" mother in any sense. The widowed, wheel-chair-bound Mrs. Clennam seems permanently aggrieved and utterly dissatisfied with life; in spite of her wealth and relative financial and personal independence, she has imprisoned herself in the house and in conducting business affairs. To exemplify her virtuosity (or, at least, keen sharp practice) in such matters, Furniss has her touch the ledger as if it were a pianoforte as she regards the entries narrowly. Unlike his mistress, who is always in control, Flintwich has a fiery temperament. In somewhat old-fashioned dress, the balding confidential servant closely studies the open book, as if ardent to know every aspect of the family business.
All illustrators of the novel have relied fairly heavily on Dickens's description of Flintwinch:
He was a short, bald old man, in a high-shouldered black coat and waistcoat, drab breeches, and long drab gaiters. He might, from his dress, have been either clerk or servant, and in fact had long been both. There was nothing about him in the way of decoration but a watch, which was lowered into the depths of its proper pocket by an old black ribbon, and had a tarnished copper key moored above it, to show where it was sunk. His head was awry, and he had a one-sided, crab-like way with him, as if his foundations had yielded at about the same time as those of the house, and he ought to have been propped up in a similar manner. [Book One, Chapter 3, "Home," 34]
The reader, therefore recognizes the figure of Flintwich instantly in the Furniss illustration, although appears somewhat more robust, less bent, dried, and skeletal than Dickens suggests.,/p>
Phiz's version of the same scene in the original serial includes Arthur: Mr. Flintwinch mediates as a friend of the family (Book 1, Chapter 5; Part 2, January 1856).
Left: Felix Octavius Carr Darley's frontispiece for the fourth volume of the novel, Closing In — Book II, Chapter XXX. Right: Sol Eytinge, Junior's dual study of the malevolent Mrs. Clennam and her well-intentioned but aloof stepson, Mrs. Clennam and Arthur Clennam (1867).
Dickens, Charles. Little Dorrit. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ("Phiz"). The Authentic Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1901 [rpt. 30 May 1857 volume].
______. Little Dorrit. Frontispieces by Felix Octavius Carr Darley and Sir John Gilbert. The Household Edition. 55 vols. New York: Sheldon & Co., 1863. Vols. I-IV.
______. Little Dorrit. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. 14 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867.
______. Little Dorrit. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. XII.
Hammerton, J. A. "Chapter 19: Little Dorrit." The Dickens Picture-Book. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. 18 vols. London: Educational Book Co., 1910. Vol. XVII, 398-427.
Vann, J. Don. "Little Dorrit." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: The Modern Language Association, 1985, 70-71.
Created 10 February 2020
Last modified 18 November 2020