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The Newsvender
Phiz
July 1844 (eighteenth) instalment
Steel-engraving
12.9 cm by 10.7 cm (5 by 4 ⅛ inches), vignetted.
Charles Lever's Tom Burke of "Ours", Chapter LXXXIX, "A Character of 'Old Dublin'" (July 1844), facing p. 220 in the 1844 edition, and 269 in the 1869 edition.
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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The doorway of the hotel was crowded with loungers and idlers of every class, from the loitering man about town to the ragged newsvendor, between whom, whatever disparity of condition existed, a tone of the most free-and-easy condition prevailed; the newsmen interpolating, amid the loud announcements of the latest intelligence, the reply to the observation beside him.
One figure was conspicuous in the group. He was a short, dwarfish creature, with an enormous head, covered with a fell of black hair, falling in masses down his back and on his shoulders. A pair of fierce, fiery black eyes glared beneath his heavy brows; and a large, thick-lipped mouth moved with all the glib eloquence of his class and calling. Fearfully distorted legs and club feet gave to his gait a rolling motion, which added to the singularity of his whole appearance.
Terry Regan was then at the head of his walk in Dublin; and to his capacious lungs and voluble tongue were committed the announcement of those great events which, from time to time, were given to the Irish public through the columns of the Correspondent and the Dublin Journal.
I soon found myself in the crowd around this celebrated character, who was, as usual, extolling the great value of that night's paper by certain brief suggestions regarding its contents. [Chapter LXXXIX, "A Character of 'Old Dublin'," 220 in the 1844 edition, vol. 2; 269 in the 1869 edition, vol. 2]
Does Phiz feature the narrator himself, recently returned from adventures on the continent, in this animated and congested street-scene? "I soon found myself in the crowd" suggests that Tom is one of the figures nearest the news-vendor, centre; however, only the figure on horseback (left rear) corresponds to Tom's mode of dress and age, and no youth wearing a beard and foreign clothing appears in the crowd gathered before the steps of Dublin's Miley's Hotel in Dame Street. But Phiz has captured what Tom terms the many variations of the "National physiognomy" (268). The purpose of the plate is obvious: it announces that, in the narrative-pictorial sequence, Tom as a young adult with extensive military service on the continent has returned to his native country, and now sees its denizens through the lens of his French and German experiences.
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.
Created 27 November 2023