[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> Phiz (Hablot K. Browne) —> Tom Burke of "Ours" —> Next]

Passage Illustrated: Tom Affects Being Asleep to Draw out His Unseen Antagonist

In this state of almost frenzied anxiety I sat long, — my eyes turned towards the door, which oftentimes I fancied I could perceive to move. At length the thought occurred to me, that by affecting sleep, if any one lay concealed within whose object was to enter the room, this would probably induce him.

I had not long to wait for the success of my scheme. The long-drawn breathing of my seeming slumber was not continued for more than a few minutes, when I saw the door slowly, almost imperceptibly, move. [Chapter LI, "The Mill on the Holitsch Road," 15 in the 1844 edition; Chapter VII, 55, in the 1865 edition]

Commentary: Putting the "Fictional" into Lever's Historical Novel (1806)

Having used the campfire scene to sum up Tom's involvement in the Battle Austerlitz in early December 1805, Phiz now advances the personal as opposed to the historically weighted narrative of Sous-Lieutenant Burke of the huitième Hussars in the recent instalments. In "The Mill on the Holitsch Road," where Tom must resolve a mystery through strategy rather than force, Phiz places him and the "locomotive" chair in the centre of the composition, and shows no other figures; this is, in fact, the first illustration for the novel that depicts Tom by himself, rather than interacting with others. Tom has thus far appeared in fifteen of the monthly illustrations, but always in group scenes, although some such as The Lady of the Lake (August 1843) depict him interacting with only one or two other characters. The picture's other distinction is that it is the first of a "before-and-after" matched pair occurring within a single chapter, its mate being The Scrimmage (facing page 16 in Chapter LI), in which Tom and his assailant wrestle for control of the pistol in a life-and-death struggle that culminates in the resolution of the mystery: the hidden adversary proves to be Henri de Beauvaise, now in the uniform of an Austrian officer.

The situation requires little delineation. After the amicable meeting of the Emperors of Austria and France some six leagues from the Emperor Francis's residence at the Château de Holitsch, half-a-day's ride from Austerlitz, General Auvergne orders Tom to hold the deserted mill until relieved, about twelve hours hence, or until further orders arrive from General Savary. Exploring the dilapidated building, he discovers an octagonal bedchamber with an ample meal and bottles of wine recently abandoned. He awakens in the early hours to find one of his pistols missing, and the door to the adjacent granary ajar: clearly somebody is in hiding there, and has stolen one of his firearms. He feigns sleeping in order to draw out the would-be assailant. Phiz has realised the critical moment when the hand attempts to remove the chair that Tom has used to block the door.

Further Information

• Charles Lever's Fourth Novel, Tom Burke of "Ours" (February 1843 — September 1844)
• Instalment-by-instalment Synopsis of the Novel's Plot and Characters: Lever's Tom Burke of "Ours" (February 1843)
• Instalment-by-instalment Synopsis of the Novel's Plot and Characters: Lever's Tom Burke of "Ours" (March 1843)
• Synopsis of the Novel's Plot and Characters for Tom Burke's Adventures in France in Lever's Tom Burke of "Ours" (April 1843 through June 1844)

Bibliography

Buchanan-Brown, John. Phiz! Illustrator of Dickens' World. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1978.

Lester, Valerie Browne Lester. Chapter 11: "'Give Me Back the Freshness of the Morning!'" Phiz! The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004. Pp. 108-127.

Lever, Charles. Tom Burke of "Ours." Dublin: William Curry, Jun., 1844. Illustrated by H. K. Browne. London: Chapman and Hall, 1865. Serialised February 1843 through September 1844. 2 vols.

Lever, Charles. Tom Burke of "Ours." Illustrated by Phiz [Hablột Knight Browne]. Vol. I and II. In two volumes. Project Gutenberg. Last Updated: 24 February 2021.

Steig, Michael. Chapter Four: "Dombey and Son: Iconography of Social and Sexual Satire." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington: Indiana U. P., 1978. Pp. 86-112.

Stevenson, Lionel. Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. London: Chapman and Hall, 1939.

_______. "The Domestic Scene." The English Novel: A Panorama. Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin and Riverside, 1960.

---

Victorian
Web

Illustra-
tion

Phiz

Tom
Burke

Next

Created 11 November 2023