“Fledgby and Riah” by Harry Furniss — eighth illustration for “Our Mutual Friend” (1910)

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Fledgby and Riah in the Counting-House

Harry Furniss

1910

12.7 cm x 9.5 cm, or 5 by 3 ¾ inches, vignetted

Dickens's Our Mutual Friend, The Charles Dickens Library Edition, for Book 2, “Birds of a Feather,” Chapter V, “Mercury Prompting,” facing XV, 272.

Perched on a stool with his hat cocked on his head and one of his legs dangling, the youth of Fledgeby hardly contrasted to advantage with the age of the Jewish man, with his bare head bowed, and his eyes on the ground. — Our Mutual, p. 286.

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Scanned images and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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Passage Illustrated: Another Study in Contrasts, with Youth at a Disadvantage

Fledgeby knocked and rang, and Fledgeby rang and knocked, but no one came. Fledgeby crossed the narrow street and looked up at the house-windows, but nobody looked down at Fledgeby. He got out of temper, crossed the narrow street again, and pulled the housebell as if it were the house’s nose, and he were taking a hint from his late experience. His ear at the keyhole seemed then, at last, to give him assurance that something stirred within. His eye at the keyhole seemed to confirm his ear, for he angrily pulled the house’s nose again, and pulled and pulled and continued to pull, until a human nose appeared in the dark doorway.

‘Now you sir!’ cried Fledgeby. ‘These are nice games!’

He addressed an old Jewish man in an ancient coat, long of skirt, and wide of pocket. A venerable man, bald and shining at the top of his head, and with long grey hair flowing down at its sides and mingling with his beard. A man who with a graceful Eastern action of homage bent his head, and stretched out his hands with the palms downward, as if to deprecate the wrath of a superior.

‘What have you been up to?’ said Fledgeby, storming at him.

‘Generous Christian master,’ urged the Jewish man, ‘it being holiday, I looked for no one.’

‘Holiday he blowed!’ said Fledgeby, entering. ‘What have you got to do with holidays? Shut the door.’

With his former action the old man obeyed. In the entry hung his rusty large-brimmed low-crowned hat, as long out of date as his coat; in the corner near it stood his staff — no walking-stick but a veritable staff. Fledgeby turned into the counting-house, perched himself on a business stool, and cocked his hat. There were light boxes on shelves in the counting-house, and strings of mock beads hanging up. There were samples of cheap clocks, and samples of cheap vases of flowers. Foreign toys, all.

Perched on the stool with his hat cocked on his head and one of his legs dangling, the youth of Fledgeby hardly contrasted to advantage with the age of the Jewish man as he stood with his bare head bowed, and his eyes (which he only raised in speaking) on the ground. His clothing was worn down to the rusty hue of the hat in the entry, but though he looked shabby he did not look mean. Now, Fledgeby, though not shabby, did look mean.

‘You have not told me what you were up to, you sir,’ said Fledgeby, scratching his head with the brim of his hat.

‘Sir, I was breathing the air.’ [Book Two, “Birds of a Feather”; Chapter V, “Mercury Prompting,” pp. 285-286]

Commentary: Furniss's Reproducing Mahoney's Dual Portrait with a Difference: Perched on the stool, with his hat cocked on his head. . .

Furniss, reacting to Mahoney's realistic treatment of the haughty, young money-lender and his dutiful Jewish employee, both based apparently on the counting-house scene in the 1875 Household Edition volume, again moves in for the closeup. However, here the later illustrator, with several available models, gives us a sense of place as well as of character in Fledgby and Riah in the Counting-House: in particular "Pubsey & Co." is reversed in the plate-glass window of the counting-house. Despite such concessions to realism reflected in the depiction of the clothing of the fashionable “Fascination” Fledgby and his traditionally-costumed Jewish employee, whose laborious attention to accounting details keeps the business afloat, Furniss employs a caricatured, supercilious expression on Fledgby's face to suggest his character. Many details match, of course, including Fledgby's hat and cane, as well as the office stool and the large desk, more credibly surrounded by large volumes, but lacking Mahoney's wastepaper basket. Furniss's contrasting figures fill the shop, whereas the Household Edition illustration includes an incongruous number of clocks and strings of beads, exactly as Dickens describes. The most significant difference is that Mahoney's woodcut is juxtaposed against the very text it realizes, whereas Furniss's requires the reader to take a proleptic approach, for the page opposite his lithograph involves an earlier conversation between Fledgby and Lammle as they sit at dinner. We actually encounter the scene in Pubsey & Co. on a bank holiday thirteen pages later than the illustration Fledgby and Riah in the Counting-House.

Comparable Illustrations in the Original, Diamond, and Household Editions (1864-1875)

Left: Marcus Stone's November 1864 realisation of Fledgby and Riah on the rooftop: Waiting for Father. (Part 7). Centre: James Mahoney presents precisely the same scene as Furniss's in Perched on the stool, with his hat cocked on his head, and one of his legs dangling, the youth of Fledgeby hardly contrasted to advantage with the age of the Jewish man as he stood with his bare head bowed (1875). Right: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s study of the young financier and his capable employee: Riah and Fledgby (1867). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

Related Materials

Illustrations by Marcus Stone (40 plates from the Chapman and Hall edition of May 1864 through November 1865)
Frontispieces by Octavius Carr Darley (4 photogravures from the Hurd and Houghton Household Edition of 1866)
Illustrations by Sol Eytinge, Jr. (16 plates from the Ticknor and Fields' Diamond Edition of 1867)
James Mahoney (58 plates from the Chapman and Hall Household Edition of 1875)
Harry Furniss (28 lithographs from the Charles Dickens Library Edition, Vol. XV, 1910)
Clayton J. Clarke (two studies from his designs for the Player's Cigarette Cards, 1910)

Bibliography

Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. Oxford and New York: Oxford U. P., 1988.

The Characters of Charles Dickens Pourtrayed in a Series of Original Water Colour Sketches by “Kyd.” London, Paris, and New York: Raphael Tuck & Sons, 1898[?].

Cordery, Gareth, and Joseph S. Meisel, eds. The Humours of Parliament: Harry Furniss's View of Late-Victorian Culture. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2014. [Review by Françoise Baillet]

Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Checkmark and Facts On File, 1999.

Dickens, Charles. Our Mutual Friend. Illustrated by Marcus Stone [40 composite wood-block engravings]. The Authentic Edition of the Works of Charles Dickens. 21 vols. London: Chapman and Hall; New York: Charles Scribners' Sons, 1901 [based on the original nineteen-month serial and the two-volume edition of 1865]. Vol. XIV.

Dickens, Charles. Our Mutual Friend. Frontispieces by Felix Octavius Carr Darley and Sir John Gilbert. The Household Edition. 55 vols. New York: Sheldon & Co., 1863. 4 vols.

Dickens, Charles. Our Mutual Friend. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. 14 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. Vol. VIII.

Dickens, Charles. Our Mutual Friend. Illustrated by James Mahoney. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1875. Volume IX.

Dickens, Charles. Our Mutual Friend. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. XV.

Hammerton, J. A. "Chapter 21: The Other Novels." The Dickens Picture-Book. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. 18 vols. London: Educational Book Co., 1910. Vol. XVII. 441-442.

Vann, J. Don. "Our Mutual Friend, twenty parts in nineteen monthly instalments, May 1864—November 1865." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: The Modern Language Association, 1985. 74.

Created 2 August 2025