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Mr. Pickwick in the Wrong Room. Keeping the curtains carefully closed with his hand, so that nothing more of him could be seen than his face and night-cap, he mustered up courage and looked out.
Harry Furniss
1910
14.2 cm x 9.5 cm (5 ½ by 3 ⅝ inches), partly framed
Dickens's Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, The Charles Dickens Library Edition, facing II, 320.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
The only way in which Mr. Pickwick could catch a glimpse of his mysterious visitor with the least danger of being seen himself, was by creeping on to the bed, and peeping out from between the curtains on the opposite side. To this manoeuvre he accordingly resorted. Keeping the curtains carefully closed with his hand, so that nothing more of him could be seen than his face and night-cap, and putting on his spectacles, he mustered up courage and looked out.
Mr. Pickwick almost fainted with horror and dismay. Standing before the dressing–glass was a middle-aged lady, in yellow curl-papers, busily engaged in brushing what ladies call their "back hair." However the unconscious middle-aged lady came into that room, it was quite clear that she contemplated remaining there for the night; for she had brought a rushlight and shade with her, which, with praiseworthy precaution against fire, she had stationed in a basin on the floor, where it was glimmering away, like a gigantic lighthouse in a particularly small piece of water.
"Bless my soul!" thought Mr. Pickwick, "what a dreadful thing!" [Chapter XXII, “Mr. Pickwick journeys to Ipswich, and meets with a romantic Adventure with a middle-aged Lady in Yellow Curl Papers,” pp. 314-315]
Furniss has, as it were, flipped the two Phiz illustrations of Pickwick's finding himself in the wrong room at the inn in Ipswich. Whereas Phiz places Pickwick well in the background as a disembodied head in a nightcap and gives the lady a significant position before her mirror, Furniss renders her as an enormous — and terrifying — shadow cast upon the bed-curtains as a transfixed Pickwick responds to the actual image of the lady arranging her hair in curlers. The curtains become merely theatrical, Miss Witherfield becomes a giantess or the shadow of Medusa, and Pickwick a mere (horrified) spectator. As a humourist, Furniss must have found the bedroom scene irresistible, but he has placed his own unique stamp upon the farcical moment as he underscores the psychological implications of the elderly bachelor's suddenly finding himself by accident in the middle-aged lady's room in the middle of the night. Although "nothing more of him could be seen than his face and night-cap" (314), his terror is palpable, and it it his shock, chagrin, and embarrassment rather than the likeness of the Miss Witherfield that matter in Furniss's reinterpretation of the "Wrong Room" scenario straight out of a French farce.
Left: Phiz's original steel engraving for this chapter, The middle-aged lady in the double-bedded room (November 1836). Right: Phiz's composite woodblock engraving for this same incident, "Standing before the dressing-glass was a middle-aged lady in yellow curl-papers, busily engaged in brushing what ladies call their 'back hair'" (1874), focuses on Pickwick, but shows Miss Witherfield before her mirror. [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Left: Thomas Nast's American Household Edition's engraving for this chapter, "Wretch," said the lady (1873). Right: Thomas Onwhyn's "extra" illustration investigating the upshot of Miss Witherfield's accusing her fiané, Peter Magnus, and Pickwick as preparing for a duel, in Magistrate Nupkins' parlour: “What prevents me,” said Mr. Nupkins, with magisterial dignity, as Job was brought in, — “what prevents me from detaining these men as rogues and impostors? It is a foolish mercy. What prevents me?’” “‘Pride, old fellow, pride,” replied Jingle, quite at his ease. “Wouldn’t do — no go — caught a captain, eh? — ha! ha! very good — husband for daughter — biter bit — make it public — not for worlds — look stupid — very!’” Page 276 (31 July 1837). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998.
Dickens, Charles. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Robert Seymour, Robert Buss, and Phiz. London: Chapman and Hall, November 1837. With 32 additional illustrations by Thomas Onwhyn (London: E. Grattan, April-November 1837).
_____. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Thomas Nast. The Household Edition. 16 vols. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1873. Vol. 4.
_____. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ('Phiz'). The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1874. Vol. 6.
_____. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. 2.
Created 11 March 2024