“Mr. Boffin among the Mounds” — Harry Furniss's seventeenth illustration for “Our Mutual Friend” (1910)

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Mr. Boffin among the Mounds

Harry Furniss

1910

13.5 cm x 9.3 cm, or 5 ¼ by 3 ⅝ inches, vignetted

The Charles Dickens Library Edition, Vol. XV, Book 3, “A Long Lane,” Chapter VI, “The Golden Dustman Falls into Worse Company,” facing 512.

He measured a from it before digging. Then from the cavity he made he took out what appeared to be an ordinary case-bottle; one of those squat, high-shouldered, short-necked glass bottles which the Dutchman is said to keep his courage in. As. — Our Mutual Friend, p. 509.

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Passage Illustrated: Noddy Boffin Tantalizes Wegg with the Possibility of Buried Treasure

He went on again, and they followed again. Gaining the top of the Mound, he turned on his light — but only partially — and stood it on the ground. A bare lopsided weatherbeaten pole was planted in the ashes there, and had been there many a year. Hard by this pole, his lantern stood: lighting a few feet of the lower part of it and a little of the ashy surface around, and then casting off a purposeless little clear trail of light into the air.

‘He can never be going to dig up the pole!’ whispered Venus as they dropped low and kept close.

‘Perhaps it’s holler and full of something,’ whispered Wegg.

‘Look in here, my dear,’ Mr. Boffin would say, checking Bella’s arm at a bookseller’s window; ‘you can read at sight, and your eyes are as sharp as they’re bright. Now, look well about you, my dear, and tell me if you see any book about a Miser.’

He was going to dig, with whatsoever object, for he tucked up his cuffs and spat on his hands, and then went at it like an old digger as he was. He had no design upon the pole, except that he measured a shovel’s length from it before beginning, nor was it his purpose to dig deep. Some dozen or so of expert strokes sufficed. Then, he stopped, looked down into the cavity, bent over it, and took out what appeared to be an ordinary case-bottle: one of those squat, high-shouldered, short-necked glass bottles which the Dutchman is said to keep his Courage in. As soon as he had done this, he turned off his lantern, and they could hear that he was filling up the hole in the dark. The ashes being easily moved by a skilful hand, the spies took this as a hint to make off in good time. [Book Three, “A Long Lane,” Chapter VI, “The Golden Dustman Falls into Worse Company,” pp. 508-509]

Commentary: Deceiving Wegg and Venus — Noddy's Reifying the Character of a Miser

Again, Furniss has referred to the original serial illustrations for a visual model, so that we may regard Mr. Boffin among the Mounds as a critical redrafting of Marcus Stone's May 1865 serial illustration The Dutch Bottle (Book III, Chapter 6), although James Mahoney flags the episode in the Household Edition sequence, too. The moment that both illustrators have realised is Boffin's unearthing a large, Dutch bottle from the mounds, as Wegg and Venus look on, convinced that the bottle must contain something valuable.

Tantalised by Boffin's tales of misers' burying their treasure, Wegg is convinced that Boffin is leaving them at the Bower so that he can dig up something valuable at the Mounds. Although Furniss focuses strictly on the nocturnal figure of Boffin as he uncovers a large Dutch gin bottle from the mound old Harmon left him, Stone rightly shows him observed by Wegg and Venus, who have followed him by watching the fitful light from his dark lantern. Wegg, of course, believes that the old bottle must contain something valuable, perhaps a legal document such as a will or property deed. The picture's dramatic tension depends upon the reader's awareness that Wegg is prepared to acquire the bottle by attacking Boffin, a rash course of action which Venus advises against. At the very end of this chapter, after Boffin has dismissed Wegg and Venus, Wegg finds in the dust heap a cash box that contains the original will for the Harmon Estate.

Although Stone's plate shows the observers accurately, as well as Boffin's probing pole, it is not effective in his portraiture of Boffin, a defect that Furniss has addressed by omitting Wegg and Venus entirely, and focussing exclusively on Boffin, his equipment, and the bottle, which he studies greedily by the light of his dark lantern. The realisations of this moment by all three illustrators signal its significance in both the Boffin-Wegg plot and in Boffin's development of moral self-awareness. Furniss, then, is suggesting that the moment is of such significance for the subject of the lithograph, but has removed the silent watchers because they achieve no such epiphany through this nocturnal scene.

The unearthing of the Dutch bottle acts as a catalyst for the revelation of the newer Harmon will hidden in the cash box that Wegg discovers in the mounds — it draws Wegg's attention to the monetary potential of the dust heaps, and leads him to search for valuables there, just as Boffin announces that he is about to have them cleared away. The newer will, which Wegg then discovers inside the cash box, stipulates that Boffin is to inherit only a small portion of the estate, with the rest going to the Crown. Hoping to profit from the dust heaps, Wegg and Venus are now motivated by the will's contents to try to get money from Boffin. The discovery of the will also enlightens Boffin about humanity's potential for deception, potentially leading him to re-evaluate his own morality.

Relevant Illustrations in the Original (Serial) and Household Editions (1865, 1875)

Left: Marcus Stone's serial plate for the May 1865 number: The Dutch Bottle (Book III, Chapter 6). Centre: Mahoney's 1875 Household Edition illustration for the same chapter focusses on the observers rather the observed in Chapter Six: "He can never be going to dig up the pole!" whispered Venus as they dropped low and kept close (p. 209).

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 1872)
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

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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]

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Dickens, Charles. Our Mutual Friend. Frontispieces by Felix Octavius Carr Darley and Sir John Gilbert. The Household Edition. 55 vols. New York: Sheldon & Co., 1872. 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.

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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 9 August 2025