#phiz

[enchantedbook]

'The Ghost's Walk' by Phiz (Hablot K. Browne), 1853.

[the-gershomite]

Star Wars Tales #18 -December 2003- Dark Horse Comics

"Way of the Warrior"

story: Peter Alilunas

art: Will Conrad

letters: Michael Heisler

editor: Jeremy Barlow

"Revenants"

story: W. Haden Blackman

pencils: Dub with Niko Henrichon

inks: Pierre-Andre Dery

colors: Phiz

letters: Steve Dutro

[charnel-grounds]

Hablot Knight Browne (1815–1882) - 'Twas there she saw of ghosts a train

illustration from the ballad 'Baron Jauïoz' in Théodore Hersart de La Villemarqué's 'Ballads and songs of Brittany', 1865

source

[mervynbunter]

Charles Dickens’s Bleak House (1852–53) illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne (“Phiz”).

[sydney-carton-of-sour-milk]

The Many Illustrators of A Tale of Two Cities 1: Hablot Knight Browne (a.k.a. Phiz)

...& a century-and-a-half-long game of telephone...

For the first post in a series on the book's illustrators, how could we start with any but the very first one?

"Although a number of critics have pilloried Hablot Knight Browne ('Phiz') for his supposed ineptitude in the program of illustration for A Tale of Two Cities, the fact that he so astutely realized and graphically elaborated so many significant elements of Dickens's letterpress is evidence that his pictorial series reflects an extremely careful reading of the printed text...The visual accompaniment [that these illustrations provided to the novel's monthly installments] was not mere ornamentation, but an aide-mémoire intended to facilitate the monthly reader's keeping track of a discontinuous narrative over a period of seven months."

from "Charles Dickens's "A Tale of Two Cities" (1859) Illustrated: A Critical Reassessment of Hablot Knight Browne's Accompanying Plates" by Philip V. Allingham from the 2003 volume of the journal Dickens Studies Annual.

Frontispiece Cover to the Monthly Installments Vignette

For some perspective on the significance of this first set of illustrations - published initially within monthly installments of the novel in 1859 (the text of which was collected from the original weekly installments published in All the Year Round, also in 1859) - that single quote comes from an entire article on these illustrations that is itself 49 pages long.

The Mail

As such, suffice it to say that this particular post will not be a thorough examination of the history, context, and impact of these illustrations (though, for those interested, be sure to click on any links you see throughout this post for all sorts of further reading!).

The Shoemaker

Instead, it will simply be a place to observe and appreciate these illustrations for what they are, in their "original" glory.

The Likeness

...I mean, just look at these things! (I'm of course gonna break formality after this one because it's my favorite😌)

Congratulations

In terms of the odyssey of finding the proper edition of these to post, "original" is the operative word.

The Stoppage at the Fountain

These are the oldest (except for some or possibly all of McLenan's...more on that many months from now though) and certainly the most iconic of the illustrations of this novel and thus have also had the most mileage, having been passed from edition to edition to edition countless times over the last 164 years.

Mr. Stryver at Tellson's Bank

That means - as the gif at the top of this post demonstrates - that these illustrations have slowly been "translated" over time into dozens of distinct images - in ways as innocuous as a change in a shadow and as striking as a change in a character's facial expression.

The Spy's Funeral

These translations have happened in all sorts of ways over the development of printing technology - blemishes, xeroxing errors, low-quality or blurry scans, too much ink being used in printing, image compression, sometimes even actual tracing of the original illustrations! - and as interesting as they can be on their own, for someone determined to find the most accurate representation of Phiz's phenomenal work, they can be...phrustrating.

The Wine-shop

In fact, as a sidebar, the illustrations that I used for the Best Character Showdown bracket turned out to themselves be traces and not originals! I am Ashamed and disheartened! You could even say that I am yet another...

The Accomplices

accomplice in the mistranslation of Phiz's work!

The Sea Rises

Rest assured, though - although they are not from the monthly installments themselves (which as far as my research has gone do not seem to be anywhere on the Internet), these particular scans are sourced directly from an online scan at the Open Library project (contained within the Internet Archive) of the first edition of A Tale of Two Cities, itself also published in 1859.

Before the Prison Tribunal

I do wish that they hadn't been cropped the way that they have and that they were available in a (much) higher resolution, but as of now, they're the best representation of Phiz's original work that we netizens have!

The Knock at the Door

A Tale of Two Cities was the final novel that Phiz illustrated for Dickens - and marked the complicated ending to a twenty-three-year (yes) professional partnership between the author and illustrator - but his work here will mark a beautiful beginning to the long archiving project we will experience together here on this blog.

The Double Recognition

Throughout the work of this project, there will be quite a variety of sources being used - from direct scans by me to the two-tone abstractions of PDFs clearly not created for the purpose of storing image information - depending on the needs and availability of each edition.

After the Sentence

All of it goes to show the importance of accuracy and attention to detail in archiving art, which is itself an art form to be appreciated.

Hope you've enjoyed!

& the standard endnote for all posts in this series:

This post is intended to act as the start of a forum on the given illustrator, so if anyone has anything to add - requests to see certain drawings in higher definition (since Tumblr compresses images), corrections to factual errors, sources for better-quality versions of the illustrations, further reading, fun facts, any questions, or just general commentary - simply do so on this post, be it in a comment/tags or the replies!💫

[uwmspeccoll]

Marbled Monday

It's a mishandled Marbled Monday with this copy of The O'Donoghue: A Tale of Ireland Fifty Years Ago by Irish novelist and raconteur Charles Lever, Esq (1806-1872). The book was published in 1845 in Dublin by William Curry, Jun. and Company with illustrations by H.K. Browne (Hablot Knight Browne, 1815-1882), an English artist and illustrator also known by his pen name, Phiz. The first illustration in particular caught my eye—it's a guy (and his gun) being thrown out a window with the caption "The Reckoning." And what a reckoning, indeed!

The marbling is a pattern called Spanish Wave that also features brightly colored veining in red, yellow, and a darker blue. I called it a "mishandled Marbled Monday" because of the abrasions to the front and back covers of the book and the library accoutrement attached to the front inside covers. Certainly not how we would treat a book in our collection these days, though this one was recently transferred to our collection from the library's general stacks.

The bookplate that doesn't have a library pocket glued over it is that of the Earl of Mexborough, though which one we aren't sure. It is likely that it was owned by John Charles George Savile, 4th Earl of Mexborough, as he was alive from 1810-1899 and this book was published in 1845. The bookplate features the arms of the Savile family, with three owls on a diagonal stripe, a lion on either side in chains, and an owl atop a knight's helmet at the top. It includes the family motto: "Be fast."

View more Marbled Monday posts.

-- Alice, Special Collections Department Manager

[cedarxwing]

Little Dorrit, 1857 Plate illustrations by Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz)

[thefugitivesaint]

Hablot Knight Browne (1815-1882), ‘Our Christmas Dream’, ''The Illustrated London News'', Jan. 4, 1845 Source