The Periodical Wood-engravings Plates for Charles Lever's "A Day's Ride: A Romance of Life" by William Newman (1817-1870)

Advertisement: Saturday, August 11, 1860. A New Serial. We commence in this number a new Serial Tale by CHARLES LEVER, author of Charles O'Malley, Harry Lorrequer, etc., entitled A Ride for a Day: the Romance of a Life. We have reason to believe that it will be unusually brilliant and interesting. it succeeds the WOMAN IN WHITE, by Wilkie Collins, in MR. CHARLES DICKENS'S British periodical; and is here republished, by an arrangement with the author, in advance of its publication in England. [498]

Portrait of the late Charles Lever from The Illustrated London News, 15 June 1872: 581.

The Harper's advertisement of 11 August 1860 (page 498) correctly states that each weekly instalment of A Ride for A Day would appear a week earlier in Harper's than in All the Year Round: Chapter I, for example, appeared first in the United States, on 11 August, but a week later in Great Britain. In the seventeen numbers of both weeklies, instalments of A Day's Ride (as it was soon called) ran alongside instalments of Great Expectations, which Dickens precipitately rushed into print in order to bolster the sagging appeal of his journal and sustain sales, which had fallen off badly when he started to run the "horse-racious and pugnacious" Lever novel in serial.

A new Serial Tale, entitled
A DAY'S RIDE: A LIFE'S ROMANCE,
BY CHARLES LEVER,
will be commenced on the 18th August (in No. 69), and continued from week to week until completed. [Page 432, 11 August 1861, in All the Year Round, last page of this number.]

The Lukewarm Reception of Lever's Irish Romance produced a Classic Bildungsroman

The failure of Charles Lever's "Irish Romance" to attract or even retain readers to the weekly periodical All the Year Round in the fall of 1860 led to Dickens's momentous decision to publish Great Expectations as a weekly serial without the benefit of a parallel illustrated monthly series (as had been the case with A Tale of Two Cities the year before). However, the highly illustrated Harper's Weekly was not nearly so dependent for its weekly circulation upon a single 'anchor' novel as Dickens's journal was. Dickens had been supplying the New York weekly with his proof-sheets for A Day's Ride: A Life's Romance ever since the summer, but even the illustrations of staff artist John McLenan had failed to create much of a buzz about Dr. Lever's latest horse-racious and pugnacious Irish "romance," which seemed to draw extensively on the author's experiences in diplomatic circles on the Continent. As soon as Harper's began to run the new Dickens novel, the publisher wisely pulled McLenan off the Lever project in order to underscore with abundant illustrations the presence in its pages of an original novel by England's leading writer of prose fiction.

In August 1846, Charles Lever, a British diplomat as well as a novelist, had entertained Charles and Catherine Dickens at Riedenburg, near Bregenz, in Austria. Although the two writers never became friends, Dickens maintained a nodding relationship with the Irish physician turned diplomat. The narrative emphasizes the connection between Lever's profession and story by its utilizing the first-person, major character point of view: the voice of the protagonist, A. P. Potts, is that of the genial Lever himself.

By June 1860, Dickens had read the first set of proofs of the new novel he had commissioned from Lever, expressed his approval of the narrative's opening chapters, and had commended the Anglo-Irish novelist on having produced a story "full of life, vivacity, originality, and humour" (Letters, IX, p. 267). Dickens scheduled Lever's forthcoming serial to take over from Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White, which would wind up in the All the Year Round number for mid-August 1860. An added hitch to the Lever production was having to forward the proofs to Spezia, Lever's current diplomatic post, before Dickens forward the corrected proofs to Harper and Brothers in New York.

This appears to have been William Newman's first major commission after he arrived in New York earlier in 1860. His cartoonish style is well suited to the naive and bombastic narrative style of Sydney Algernon Potts, although Newman seems to be trying to adapt the story's Continental and British characters to the American milieu in terms of fashions.

A Day's Ride; A Life's Romance (18 August 1860): Chapter I.

IT has been said, that any man, no matter how small and insignificant the post he may have filled in life, who will faithfully record the events in which he has borne a share, even though incapable of himself deriving profit from the lessons he has learned, may still be of use to others — sometimes a guide, sometimes a warning. I hope this is true. I like to think it so, for I like to think that even I — A. S. P. — if I cannot adorn a tale, may at least point a moral. [first instalment begins on p. 441 and ends on p. 447]

Volume 4 A Ride for a Day. A Romance of Life

I. 11 August 1860: Chapter 1, p. 428-429, 506-507: no illustration. However, Part Three of Collins's The Woman in White, pp. 501-502, had two illustrations.

II. "A Ride for a Day," 18 August 1860: Chapter 2, p. 522: no illustration.

III. "A Day's Ride: A Life's Romance," 25 August 1860: Chapter 3, p. 541: two illustrations:

"Come and see me one of these days, Potts." (top of p. 541)
"What do you mean?" said I, jumping up in my bed. (bottom of p. 541)

IV. 1 September 1860: Chapter 5, pp. 549-550 with two illustrations:

"As I walked onward against the swooping wind and the plashing rain," etc. (top p. 549)
"In this state was it that I entered the little inn of Ovoca." (bottom right)

V. 8 September 1860: Chapter 6, p. 573 two illustrations at the top:

"I used to go each morning to the post in the village," etc. (left)
"The rustle of a muslin dress hastily brushing through the trees" etc.(right) p. 574

VI. 15 September 1860: Chapter 7, p. 588-589 single illustration.

Swimming for a wager against a major player (top of p. 589)

VII. 22 September 1860: Chapter 8, p. 605-606: two illustrations:

"Scrutinizing the pieces carefully as he went" (bottom left)
"He saddled and bridled a horse, and rode for the sea-coast" (bottom right)

VIII. 29 September 1860: Chapter 9, p. 621 two illustrations:

"Where the —— are you driving to, sir?" cried I. (top)
"When we came to the gate on the road he turned round full and looked at the house," etc. (bottom, p. 621)

IX. 6 October 1860: Chapter 10, p. 636 with two illustrations on p. 637:

"Any luggage, sir? Is this yours?" said he, pointing to a wool-sack. (top)
"He was fast, sound asleep, and snoring loudly." (bottom)

X. 13 October 1860: Chapter 11, p. 645 two illustrations:

"While I screamed murder in every language I could command." (bottom left, p. 645)
"And ran ever onward with the wildness of one possessed." (bottom right, p. 645.

XI. 20 October 1860: Chapter 12, p. 661, two illustrations:

"It was at nightfall that I drove into Kalbratunstadt," etc. (bottom left, p. 663)
"In that semi-nude sociality, begun on the sands," etc. (bottom right, p. 663)

XII. 27 October 1860: Chapter 13-14, p. 677: one large illustration for Ch. 13:

"I had practiced this explanation as I dressed in the morning."; Chapter 14, p. 678.

XIII. 3 November 1860: Chapter 15-16, p. 701 with one illustration:

"No more tea — none!" cried I, etc. (bottom, p. 701).

XIV. 10 November 1860: Chapter 16-17, p. 714 with one illustration:

"Is the mosquito happier for having stung one's nose?" to p. 715.

XV. 17 November 1860: Chapter 18-19

headnote illustration bottom of first page, 732: "You would never guess how I recognized you, sir," said she. [Potts and the old lady]

XVI. 24 November 1860: Chapter 20-21, p. 749

Great Expectations starts with three regular illustrations, a headnote vignette, and a portrait of Dickens. Ch. 21 pp. 750-751: no illustration.
XVII. 1 December 1860: Chapter 22-23, p. 762-763: no illustration.
XVIII. 8 December 1860: Chapter 24-25, p 778-779: no illustration.
XIX. 15 December 1860: Chapter 26-27, p 797-798: no illustration.
XX. 22 December 1860: Chapter 28-29, p. 805-806; no illustration.
XXI. 29 December 1860: Chapter 30, p. 822-823 (first column): no illustration. "A Message from the Sea. Dickens's Christmas Story" occupies pp. 825-831.

Volume 5: Parts XXII to XXXV

XXII. Chapter 31-32: 12 January 1861, pp. 26-27 no illustration.
XXIII. Chapter 33: 19 January 1861, pp. 42-43 no illustration.
XXIV. Chapter 34: 26 January 1861, pp. 62-63 no illustration.
XXV. Chapter 35: 2 February 1861, pp. 78-79 no illustration.
XXVI. Chapter 36: 9 February 1861, pp. 94-95 no illustration.
XXVII. Chapter 37: 16 February 1861, pp. 110-111 no illustration.
XXVIII. Chapter 38: 23 February 1861, pp. 126-127 no illustration.
XXIX. Chapter 39: 2 March 1861, pp. 142-143 no illustration.
XXX. Chapter 40: 9 March 1861, p. 158 no illustration.
XXXI. Chapter 41-42: 16 March 1861, p. 171 no illustration.
XXXII. Chapter 43: 23 March 1861, p. 187 no illustration.
XXXIII. Chapter 44-45: 30 March 1861, pp. 197-199 no illustration.
XXXIV. Chapters 46-47: 6 April 1861, pp. 218-219 "Final Adventures and Settlement": no illustration.

I set off for England that night—I left for Wales the next morning — and I have never quitted it since that day.
THE END.

Related Volume Illustrations (1862)

Phiz's Four Engravings for A Day's Ride (Chapman & Hall, 1862)

Bibliography

Brown, Jane E., and Richard Samuel West. "William Newman (1817—1870): A Victorian Cartoonist in London and New York." American Periodicals, 17, 2: "Periodical Comics and Cartoons." (Ohio State University Press, 2007), 143-183. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20770984.

Garvey, Dana M. "William Newman: A Victorian Cartoonist in London and New York." (Review) Victorian Periodicals Review, 42(4): 417-418. DOI:10.1353/vpr.0.0097

Lever, Charles. A Day's Ride: A Life's Romance. Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization. Illustrated by William Newman. Vols. IV-V (13 April 1860 through 23 March 1861) in thirty-five weekly parts. Only a dozen of these weekly instalments were illustrated: p. 541 (one), 549 (two), 573, 589, 605, 621, 637, 649, 661, 678, 701, and 714.

_______. A Day's Ride; A Life's Romance. Illustrated by "Phiz" (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, 1863, rpt. Routledge, 1882.

_______. A Day's Ride: A Life's Romance. London: Chapman and Hall, 1873.

Lever, Charles James. A Day's Ride; A Life's Romance. http://www.gutenberg.org//files/32692/32692-h/32692-h.htm

Stevenson, Lionel. Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. New York: Russell & Russell, 1939, rpt. 1969.

Sutherland, John. "Charles Lever." The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford U. P., 1989. Pp. 372-374.

_______. A Day's Ride; A Life's Romance. Illustrated by "Phiz" (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, 1863, rpt. Routledge, 1882.

_______. A Day's Ride: A Life's Romance. London: Chapman and Hall, 1873.

Lever, Charles James. A Day's Ride; A Life's Romance. http://www.gutenberg.org//files/32692/32692-h/32692-h.htm

Stevenson, Lionel. Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. New York: Russell & Russell, 1939, rpt. 1969.

Sutherland, John. "Charles Lever." The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford U. P., 1989. Pp. 372-374.

Last modified 11 May 2022