Phiz - About the Famous Dickens Illustrator Hablot Knight Browne, Known as Phiz Phiz Phiz Illustration from David Copperfield Hablot Knight Browne (Lambeth, July 12, 1815 - London, July 8 1882), better known by his pseudonym Phiz - (the nickname with which he signed all his works), was an English illustrator. Browne illustrated the first editions of many of Charles Dickens best known works, and is regarded by some critics as the "man who made Dickens" in the sense that Browne's illustrations brought Dickens' characters to life and helped make his books popular. Browne reached the height of his fame as an illustrator of the characters in the novels of Charles Dickens, his technical mastery surpassing that of his major rivals of the time, George Cruikshank and John Leech. Browne was born in Lambeth, England (near London) on Kennington Lane. He was the fourteenth of fifteen children of Catherine and William Loder Browne.

When Browne was 7 years old, his father William Brown, abandoned the family, changed his name to William Breton and sailed to the United States, where he became famous for his watercolors. Eventually, his wife went to court and had William Brown declared dead. Browne's family was left destitute. Thomas Moxon, husband of William's sister, Ann Loder Browne, helped the large Browne family financially. However, Browne chose not to pursue a career as an engraver. His artistic interests lay in drawing and illustration. In 1833, Browne won an important award from John Gilpin's Society for the Arts, and the following year Browne left the engraving workshop to devote himself to drawing. In the spring of 1836, Browne met Charles Dickens; and began a long standing artistic relationship with the author. Dickens was looking for an artist able to illustrate his novel "The Pickwick Papers" and chose Browne to be the illustrator after seeing Browne's illustrations for a little pamphlet entitled Sunday under Three Heads. Dickens was impressed by Browne's work as an artist.

A Pencil Portrait of Phiz The Pickwick Papers was released in monthly instalments from 1836 to 1837. The first seven illustrations had been drawn by Robert Seymour . However, Seymour had committed suicide in 1836, before the book had been completed. The next two instalments had been illustrated by R.W. Buss, a successful portrait artist, but Dickens had not been entirely pleased with Buss's work. Browne and another illustrator, WM Thackeray, presented themselves at Dickens's office to offer their services. The writer chose Browne. Browne's first two illustrations for The Pickwick Papers were signed with the alias, "Nemo" (which means nobody in Latin), but from the third illustration onward he signed his drawings with the penname "Phiz," which would be his penname throughout his career. Phiz's Illustrations from the Pickwick Club When Browne was asked why he had chosen "Phiz" as his penname, he explained that he had chosen it to match Dickens' pseudonym, "Boz". "Boz" and "Phiz" soon became good friends, and in 1838 made a trip together through the Yorkshire.

Phiz illustrated ten of Dickens's books. His best illustrations are the ones he did for David Copperfield , Pickwick, Dombey and Son, Martin Chuzzlewit and Bleak House . In addition to his work for Dickens, Phiz did a lot of illustrations for Punch Magazine. Phiz also illustrated more than twenty novels by Charles Lever (for example Charles O'Malley, Jack Hinton and Knight of Gwynne). He also illustrated the works of Harrison Ainsworth and Frank Smedley. In 1867, in the prime of his career as an illustrator, Phiz was hit by a palsy. Phiz recovered slowly, and was able to return to illustrating. However his work lacked the artistic merit of his pre-illness drawings. In 1878 he received a special commendation from the Royal Academy for his career as an illustrator. Phiz's health slowly deteriorated until he died on 8 July 1882. Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz), Dickens Illustrator Click here to read a Biography about Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz) which was published on the occasion of his death.

The memoir contains a number of great illustrations from the works of Charles Dickens as well as other books illustrated by Phiz. Charles Dickens and his Illustrators Dickensï¿½s novels were masterpieces even without the accompaniment of illustrations, however, they were still an important and fundamental aspect to his work. Illustrations were very important to Dickens partly because of the world in which he grew up in, and partly because of his acknowledgement of prints in the realistic satires of William Hogarth and the grotesque caricatures of Thomas Rowlandson and James Gillray. As well, the illustrations for nursery tales and adult fiction profoundly affected his imagination and his art (Cohen 1980). From the Sketches by Boz in 1836 to The Mystery of Edwin Drood in 1870, Dickensï¿½s books reveal his exposure and his debt to prints, particularly those by Hogarth, with whom he has been consistently compared (Cohen 1980). Only two of Dickensï¿½ major works, Hard Times and Great Expectations, were issued originally without any illustrations. Dickens worked closely with his illustrators ensuring that his vision of his characters and settings were exactly how he himself envisioned them to be.

In working in close collaboration with his illustrators, Dickens would supply them with an overall summary of his work for the cover illustration (Cohen 1980). Dickensï¿½s instructions to his artists indicated that he visualized the scenes he wanted for his novels thoroughly and in detail often ï¿½specifying the number of characters as well as their position, gestures, expressions, dress, and settingsï¿½ (Cohen 1980:5). It has been reported that sometimes, Dickens would even go as far as stipulating details of color even though the illustration was to be in black and white; Dickens ï¿½endowed his protagonists with his own ability to visualize experiences and perceptions with memorable painterly detailsï¿½ (Cohen 1980:5). Dickens was not only concerned about the illustrations for his books, but was concerned about every aspect of the appearance of his novels including the arrangement of his paragraphs.

He often inspected not only the final drawings, but the preliminary sketches as well, which ï¿½he rarely returned without ideas for improvementsï¿½ (Cohen 1980:5); he exerted unprecedented authority over everything except the actual execution of the drawings to his works (Cohen 1980). Jane R. Cohen in her text, Charles Dickens and his Original Illustrators, identifies and captures the essence of Dickensï¿½s authority over his work and relationship with his illustrators, when she writes: The force of Dickensï¿½s personality and of his pictorial imagination determined the success of his illustrations as much as the talent of his artists. Although he was flattered at first by the opportunity to collaborate with George Cruikshank and Robert Seymour, the two most famous illustrators of the 1830ï¿½s, Dickens soon found the traditional subordination of author to artist intolerable and managed to reverse the roles on his own works (Cohen 1980:5). It is clear that illustrations were a fundamental aspect to Dickens and his writings. Throughout Dickensï¿½s career as a writer he employed many artists to illustrate his novels.

The following pages explore the lives of three of some of his most well-known illustrators. George Cruikshank George Cruikshank was one of Dickensï¿½ early illustrators. He was born into a family of artists and worked alongside his father at an early age engraving lottery tickets and chapbooks. After his fatherï¿½s death, Cruikshank developed into one of the foremost political caricaturist of the day (Golden 2000). Cruikshank was one of the greatest illustrators of his time and met Dickens through John Macrone, a publisher for the successful writer, William Harrison Ainsworth. Macrone suggested that Dickensï¿½ sketches should be put together in a book, illustrated by Cruikshank, and this book would be titled Sketches by Boz published in 1836. Their working relationship lasted six years during which time Cruikshank provided over forty illustrations for Sketches by Boz and its cover design for the 1839 edition, which was a visual depiction of Dickensï¿½s metaphor in his 1836 Preface of novelist and artist ascending in a balloon (Cordery 2005).

As well, he contributed twenty-one illustrations for the novel, Oliver Twist. Cruikshank was known as the Grand Old Man of caricature and was eminently suited to illustrating the early works of Dickens; his illustrations of ï¿½Oliver asking for moreï¿½ and Fagin in the condemned cell, are certainly among the most memorable of his work for Dickens (Cordery 2005). Cruikshank was strongly inventive and had a keen eye for the absurd and the pathetic (Houfe 1996). Typical of Dickensï¿½ early work, Oliver Twist, demonstrates Dickensï¿½s descriptive prose style that readily evokes visualization and so easily accommodates pictures as an integral part of the serialï¿½ (Houfe 1996). Unfortunately, however, the struggle for artistic control between the established artist and the aspiring novelist, led Dickens to replace the ï¿½independently minded Cruikshankï¿½ (Cordery 2005:28) with H.K. Browne.

Initially, Cruikshank and Dickensï¿½ friendship survived the professional separation until Cruikshank converted to teetotalism, the practice and promotion of complete or total abstinence from alcohol, and his increasingly fanatical campaign during the temperance movement. Members of the Temperance Society attempt to greatly reduce the amount of alcohol consumption and prohibit its production entirely. Cruikshank became involved in the movement to protect children and published several books on the subject including, A Slice of Bread and Butter and Our Gutter Children. After Dickensï¿½ death, Cruikshank claimed that the plot and many of the characters from the book Oliver Twist were his ideas. Much debate has been written about the controversy over whose ideas for the characters in Oliver Twist really are. There are arguments that suggest that the relationship between author and artist in the 1830s was one of equals, so it is not completely unlikely for Cruikshank to have had some affect on the course of the novel (Cordery 2005). Cruikshank was indeed an important artistic figure of his time and of his work for Charles Dickens.

Although Dickensï¿½s and Cruikshankï¿½s collaboration sparked much controversy and has continued to remain an interest to artists and novelists over the years, Cruikshank certainly has become one of the greatest English artists of the nineteenth century. It is ironic however, that the long over-due reassessment of Cruikshank in recent times has been brought about by the efforts of ï¿½earnest Dickensiansï¿½ (Cohen 1980:38) who, having reestablished Dickens as a giant of English literature, are now helping to reestablish his first illustrator as a giant of English art (Cohen 1980). Hablot Knight Browne (ï¿½Phizï¿½) Perhaps the most significant illustrator for Charles Dickens was Hablot Knight Browne who contributed, over a twenty three year period, his work and dedication to illustrating his work. Hablot Knight Browne, also known as Phiz, was a water-colour painter, book illustrator and humorous artist (Golden 2000).

He was born in 1815 to a middle-class London family and later began apprenticing under the brothers Finden, a firm of London engravers. Later he began etching and water-colour painting, and his proficiency as an etcher was recognized when he was awarded the Society of Artsï¿½ medal for his etching of John Gilpinï¿½s Ride in 1833. This etching demonstrated Browneï¿½s remarkable skill at drawing horses which he would later illustrate so remarkably again in Dickensï¿½s A Tale of Two Cities (Cohen 1980). Browne most benefited from the untimely death of Robert Seymour, when he succeeded him as Dickensï¿½ illustrator for the Pickwick Papers, 1836 (Golden 2000). In the original edition of Pickwick, issued in monthly parts from 1836 until the end of 1837, the first seven plates were drawn by Robert Seymour, and the next two plates were done by RW Buss, a successful portrait-painter and lecturer (Cordery 2005).

Seymour reportedly had a nervous breakdown in result of being unable to satisfy Dickens and his publishers, so on the completion of the second installment of the Pickwick Papers, Seymour committed suicide (Golden 2000). Bussï¿½s illustrations were poor and deemed unsuitable according to Dickens, so a new illustrator was imperative. In need of a new illustrator for his serial publication of Pickwick, Dickens personally selected Browne as his successor after Robert Bussï¿½s illustrations had been deemed unsuitable (Cordery 2005). Dickens selected Browne amongst other well known artist of the day like, W.M. Thackeray, because of ï¿½his youth, inexperience, and receptive and malleable character he was ideal for Dickensï¿½s purposesï¿½ (Cordery 2005:24). Browne was one of Dickensï¿½s chief illustrators, who contributed to more than 700 designs in both steel and wood to 10 out of 15 of Dickensï¿½ major novels.

Browne illustrated for Dickens for over a course of twenty-three years, between the periods of 1836 to 1859, to which he made illustrations for Pickwick Papers 1836 and A Tale of Two Cities. His first two etchings for Pickwick were signed ï¿½Nemoï¿½, and his third etching was signed ï¿½Phizï¿½, a pseudonym which he continued to retain throughout his career. Browne has been quoted as saying that the name ï¿½Phizï¿½ was made to harmonize better with Dickensï¿½s ï¿½Bozï¿½, but some researchers have claimed that possibly Browne adopted it to conceal his identity in hopes of one day becoming a famous painter, as it should be noted the name ï¿½Phizï¿½ was usually attached to his better work and ï¿½H.K.B.ï¿½ was attached to his less successful drawings (Cohen 1980).

Browne became so sensitive to Dickensï¿½s writing that his own style and technique often appeared to have assimilated and mirrored his strengths, weaknesses, and changes (Cohen 1980). As Dickens would continually shift his plot and character emphasis from a picaresque plot in Pickwick to a layered symbolism in Bleak House, Browne maintained and ï¿½kept pace graphically, content to let Dickensï¿½s imagination spark his ownï¿½ (Cohen 1980:62). Browne and Dickens continued to remain personally good friends and in 1838 they traveled together to Yorkshire where they visited various schools and gathered ideas for the novel Nicholas Nickelby (Golden 2000). They continued to travel and make journeys of this nature together in order to facilitate the illustratorï¿½s work. Eventually, Dickens became tired of Browneï¿½s illustrations and thought that his talents were becoming old-fashioned.

Browneï¿½s draftsmanship was in tradition of the ï¿½Regencyï¿½ as he stuck to plates, while other artists and illustrators moved towards a more modern type of illustrating, wood blocks (Golden 2000). So, nonetheless, other more modern illustrators took his place in the 1860s. Although, perhaps, lacking Cruikshankï¿½s vanity, Seymourï¿½s hypersensitivity, and Bussï¿½s etching experience, it has been said that ï¿½Browneï¿½s compliant nature smoothed the way for what is arguably the most successful collaboration in the history of book illustrationï¿½ (Cordery 2005:24). Dickensï¿½s choice of employing Browne to become his illustrator proved so thoroughly justified that ï¿½Mr. Hablot Browneï¿½s name is not unworthily associated with the masterpieces of Dickensï¿½s geniusï¿½ (Cohen 1980:63). John Leech John Leech was another illustrator for Charles Dickens.

As already one of the leading artists of the day, Leech would later become one of the main illustrators of Dickensï¿½s Christmas books. Leech was born in London and showed a remarkable aptitude for drawing at an early age. During his education, Leech befriended W.M. Thackeray, Albert Smith, and Percival Leigh, all writers whom furthered Leech in his artist profession. Leech was taught to draw on wood by Orrin Smith and it was in this field of black and white work that he made his name (Golden 2000). Leech was one of the artists considered to replace Robert Seymour for illustrating Dickensï¿½s Pickwick and even though he was not selected to do so, Leech and Dickens became lifelong friends. Leech did, however, earn recognition in his own right, especially after becoming an artist for Punch, a satirical journal in 1841.

His independent reputation enabled him to ï¿½become a close friend to Dickens ï¿½ for whom he worked because of friendship, not necessity ï¿½ than would have been otherwise possible had he been subordinate to him from the firstï¿½ (Cohen 1980:141). Although Leech was more important to Dickens as a friend than as an illustrator, Leech did, however, contribute many illustrations for Dickensï¿½ Christmas books and was the sole illustrator for A Christmas Carol (Perdue 1997). With the Christmas books, Leech introduced a ï¿½measure of beauty into his caricatures, lending refinement to a formerly crude genre that too often equated ugliness with evil and grace with weaknessï¿½ (Cohen 1980:141). Leechï¿½s aesthetic gentility had an effect on Dickens whose own characterization appeared to grow noticeably more refined after he started working with him. The artist, in turn, garnered material from Dickensï¿½s writings for many of his best Punch cartoons.

The authorï¿½s affection for Leech, in contrast to that for his earlier illustrators, like Cruikshank, survived the vicissitudes of literary and theatrical collaboration and lasted to the end of their lives (Cohen 1980). The Illustrators of the Household Edition of the Works of Charles Dickens (22 vols, 1871-79) [ Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> Fred Barnard ] The name of the new series, the first edition to be published after Dickens's death in 1870 — "The Household Edition — was chosen in part, of course, because of the appeal of Household Words, which readers brought up in the 1850s would probably have enjoyed as "family" reading. But "Household" may also refer to the fact that this was literally an edition "for the home," and was meant as a kind of "library edition" for ordinary readers and the less affluent, who would be able, through careful budgeting, to purchase the entire run of twenty-two volumes over a protracted period.

Perhaps, then, we should consider Chapman and Hall's entitling this large-format, beautifully bound edition as "being for the Victorian hearth and home," the gold-stamped binding recalling some of Dickens's best loved characters and the colour of the initial serial wrappers for the novels from 1836 through 1870. Paul Davis in Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work indicates that Chapman and Hall issued the new series of Dickens's works, beginning about a year after his death and running all the way to the end of the decade, the last volume in the series fittingly being John Forster's The Life of Charles Dickens. Simultaneously, Harper and Brothers, one of Dickens's two North American licencees, issued its own set of Household Edition volumes, sometimes substituting the work of an American illustrator such as Thomas Nast or Charles Stanley Reinhart for the work of a British illustrator not so well known to the American book-buying public.

The series on both sides of the Atlantic was amply illustrated in a manner that the original Chapman and Hall monthly parts could not have been, with large-scale woodcut illustrations dropped right into the letterpress, which was set in two columns with a border to emulate the appearance of Dickens's own weekly journal of 1850 through 1859, Household Words. The question of why Chapman and Hall elected to publish the novels in the following order is a good one. The fact that several of what are now classified as 'late' or 'dark' novels were published quite early (especially Bleak House and Little Dorrit , but also Our Mutual Friend and A Tale of Two Cities ) suggests that Dickens's British publishers assumed that these titles were still popular and would therefore be best-sellers in this new, highly attractive format. The standard critical line about Dickens's early reception, starting with his biographer, John Forster, is that Dickens went into decline as a writer of novels (as opposed to his professional journalism) somewhere around Dombey and Son (1846) or even David Copperfield (1850). But this at least suggests that the later, longer novels maintained a popular appeal.

Such a case cannot readily be made for Hard Times (1854), Great Expectations (1861), and The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870). Some logistical factors that must have influenced the order of publication for Chapman and Hall, who elected to publish separate volumes for such short novels as A Tale of Two Cities rather than to combine them, as Harper and Brothers did, are as follows: a. negotiations with Harper's about which volumes, based on American sales and the availability of American illustrators, should come first; b. the continued strong sales of certain titles, such as The Pickwick Papers; c. the number of volumes it could conceivably have the indefatigable Barnard illustrate; d. the length of time it would take for the typesetting of the longer volumes; e. the development of a schedule of publication that would reasonably space the publication of the twenty-odd volumes over four years. The Harper and Brothers Household Edition was 16 volumes (instead of 22, as in the case of the Chapman and Hall production), and came out between 1872 and 1877.

Those volumes that were illustrated by American artists are as follows: The Old Curiosity Shop by Thomas Worth; Dombey and Son by W. L. Sheppard; Nicholas Nickleby by C. S. Reinhart; Pickwick Papers by Thomas Nast; Christmas Stories by E. A. Abbey Hard Times by C. S. Reinhart; Pictures from Italy and American Notes by Thomas Nast. Frederic G. Kitton adds that Reinhart illustrated the American printing of The Uncommercial Traveller, that A. B. Frost did Sketches by Boz, and that E. A. Abbey Christmas Stories. As to the Household Edition's artists alluding to the work of earlier ones, especially Hablot Knight Browne ("Phiz"): they certainly had the illustrations of the original artists in mind, but one cannot be certain as to whether the British illustrators of the Household Edition knew the work of slightly earlier/US illustrators, particularly Darley and Eytinge.

Barnard, as a great friend of Phiz, had access to the insights of the author, if only second-hand, when he worked on the hundreds of line drawings he was commissioned by the engravers, the Dalziel brothers, on behalf of Chapman and Hall to produce for the new series. Order of publication of individual works in the Household Edition Dickens's works appeared in weekly numbers, monthly parts, and volumes in the following order: 1. Oliver Twist, 1871 (Illustrator: J. Mahoney) 2. Martin Chuzzlewit, 1872 (Illustrator: F. Barnard) 3. David Copperfield, 1872 (Illustrator: F. Barnard) 4. Bleak House, 1873 (Illustrator: F. Barnard) 5. Little Dorrit, 1873 (Illustrator: J. Mahoney) 6. The Pickwick Papers, 1874 (Illustrator: H. Browne) 7. Barnaby Rudge, 1874 (Illustrator: F. Barnard) 8.

A Tale of Two Cities, 1874 (Illustrator: F. Barnard) 9. Our Mutual Friend, 1875 (Illustrator: J. Mahoney) 10. Nicholas Nickleby, 1875 (Illustrator: F. Barnard) 11. Great Expectations, 1876 (Illustrator: F.A. Fraser) 12. The Old Curiosity Shop, 1876 (Illustrator: C. Green) 13. Sketches by Boz, 1876 (Illustrator: F. Barnard) 14. Hard Times, 1877 (Illustrator: H. French) 15. Dombey and Son, 1877 (Illustrator: F. Barnard) 16. The Uncommercial Traveller, 1877 (Illustrator: E. G. Dalziel) 17. Christmas Books, 1878 (Illustrator: F. Barnard) 18. Child’s History of England, 1878 (Illustrator: J. McL.

Ralston) 19. American Notes / Pictures from Italy, 1878 (Illustrators: A. B. Frost / Gordon Thomson) 20. The Mystery of Edwin Drood / Reprinted Pieces / Other Stories, 1879 (Illustrators: L. Fildes / E.G. Dalziel / F. Barnard) 21. Christmas Stories 1879 (Illustrator: E. G. Dalziel) 22. John Forster’s Life of Charles Dickens 1879 (Illustrator: F. Barnard). References Cook, James. Bibliography of the Writings of Dickens. London: Frank Kerslake, 1879. As given in Publishers’ Circular The English Catalogue of Books. Kitton, Frederic G. Dickens and His Illustrators. 1899. Rpt. Honolulu: U. Press of the Pacific, 2004. A Biography of "Phiz" (H. K. Browne), Dickens Most Famous Illustrator Portrait of "Phiz" (H. K. Browne) A Memoir of "Phiz" (H. K.

Browne), Dickens' Most Famous Illustrator "Fizz, Whizz, or something of that sort," humorous TOM HOOD would say,when trying to recall the pseudonym that has since become so familiar bymeans of the innumerable works of art to which it was appended. At thetime HABLOT[A] KNIGHT BROWNE first used this quaint _soubriquet_, it wascustomary to look upon book-illustrators as second, or even third-rateartists--mere hacks in fact; and for this reason they usually suppressedtheir real names, in order to give themselves the opportunity of earningthe title of _artist_, when producing more ambitious results aspainters. Occasionally, whether by accident or design, the subject ofthis memoir would affix his real name to his illustrations; and thepublic were consequently under the impression that the two signatureswere those of different artists, and were even wont to remark that"_Browne's work was better than that of 'Phiz!_'" It is not, perhaps, generally known that the artist's first _nom decrayon_ was "NEMO," which to some extent bears out the above statementthat a book-illustrator was considered a "nobody." Mr.

BROWNE himself,in referring to the _Pickwick Papers_, gave the followingexplanation:--"I think I signed myself as 'NEMO' to my first etchings(those of No. 4) before adopting 'Phiz' as my _soubriquet_, toharmonize--I suppose--better with Dickens' 'Boz.'" It is only on theearliest printed plates in some copies of the _Pickwick Papers_ that thesignature of "NEMO" can be faintly traced. The Departure, by Phiz HABLOT KNIGHT BROWNE, son of William Loder Browne, a descendant from aNorfolk family, was born on the 12th of July, 1815, at Kennington,London. He was educated at a private school in Norfolk, and from anearly age evinced a taste for drawing, which, being recognized by hisrelatives, induced them to apprentice him to FINDEN, the well-knownline-engraver. An anecdote is told of him during his apprenticeshipwhich will bear repetition.

Finding BROWNE very painstaking andconscientious, his master usually sent him with engraved plates to theprinter, in order that he might superintend the operation ofproof-taking. As printers usually take their own time over such matters,the youth found that this waiting the pressman's pleasure tried hispatience too much. It therefore occurred to him that to spend theinterval in the British Museum, hard by, would be much more suited tohis tastes. On his returning with the proofs, FINDEN would praise theboy's diligence, little thinking what trick had been practised on him. Line-engraving, however, did not find much favour with the future"Phiz," the process being too tedious; for FINDEN would probably occupysome weeks to produce a small plate, which by the quicker process ofetching, could have been executed in as many hours. He accordinglysuspended operations in that quarter, and, in conjunction with a youngkindred spirit, hired a small attic, and employed his time in the morefascinating pursuit of water-colour drawing, which he continued tofollow with remarkable assiduity until a few days before his death.

The Death of Quilp, from The Old Curiosity Shop, by Charles Dickens These juvenile disciples of the brush then worked hard at drawing incolour. BROWNE paid his share of the rent in drawings, which he producedrapidly; indeed, there was a solemn compact between the co-workers to"do three a day"--they subsisting, meanwhile, on the simplest fare. Atthis time he attended the evening class at the "Life" School in St.Martin's Lane, and was a fellow-pupil with ETTY, the famous painter ofthe "nude." It was BROWNE'S great delight to watch this talented studentat work, and he considerably neglected his own studies in consequence. At the age of seventeen, or thereabouts, he succeeded in gaining a medaloffered for competition by the Society of Arts for the bestrepresentation of an historical subject; and was again fortunate inobtaining a prize, from the same Society, for a large etching of "JohnGilpin." Mr.

GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA, himself an artist of no smallability, remembers to have seen, in a shop-window in Wardour Street, acertain print by a young man named HABLOT BROWNE, representing theinvoluntary flight of John Gilpin, scattering the pigs and poultry inhis never-to-be-forgotten ride. By the time he had attained his twentieth year he had acquiredconsiderable facility with the pencil. CHARLES DICKENS, but three yearshis senior, and with whom the name of "Phiz" is inseparably connected,had just then made a wonderful reputation by his "Sketches," which firstappeared, at intervals, during 1834-5, and were afterwards published inbook form, illustrated by the renowned GEORGE CRUIKSHANK . In 1836, there appeared in print a pamphlet of some forty or fiftypages, entitled _Sunday under Three Heads--As it is; as Sabbath Billswould make it; as it might be made_; "By Timothy Sparks; illustrated byH. K. B.;" and dedicated to the Bishop of London.

The author was CHARLESDICKENS, whose satire was levelled at Sir Andrew Agnew and the extremeSabbatarian party, and had immediate reference to a bill "for the betterobservance of the Sabbath," which the House of Commons had recentlythrown out by a small majority. The illustrations in this little workwere drawn by HABLOT BROWNE, and are very choice examples ofwood-engraving of the school that existed half a century ago. Itsoriginal price was one shilling, but having become very scarce, it isnow worth more than its weight in gold. These early productions of BROWNE'S pencil at once introduced him topublic notice, and DICKENS showed his appreciation of their excellenceby selecting him as the illustrator of the _Pickwick Papers_, whichappeared during the early part of that year. It is well known to thereaders of Forster's _Life of Dickens_, that the idea of "Pickwick" wassuggested to the author by ROBERT SEYMOUR, whose tastes induced him toetch a few plates of sporting subjects to which DICKENS was to supplythe text. Thus commenced that immortal work known as _The PosthumousPapers of the Pickwick Club_.

SEYMOUR produced seven illustrations, whenhe committed suicide, which obliged the publishers to make arrangementswith another artist. R. W. BUSS[B] succeeded SEYMOUR, and etched twoplates, which DICKENS, who had by this time assumed the control of thework, thought so unsatisfactory (as indeed they were), that he declinedhis further services. Here a fresh opening was created, and WILLIAMMAKEPEACE THACKERAY competed with HABLOT KNIGHT BROWNE for the post;both submitting to DICKENS' inspection some specimens of their work. Hablot Knight Browne (pseudonym "Phiz"), 1815-82. Hablot Knight Browne (pseudonym "Phiz"), 1815-82. Philip V. Allingham , Contributing Editor, The Victorian Web, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Ontario [ Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> Phiz (Hablot K.

Browne) ] he eminent nineteenth-century British book illustrator Hablot Knight Browne was born on 10 July 1815, the ninth son in a middle-class London family that would eventually include ten sons and five daughters. According to Phiz biographer and lineal descendant Valerie Browne Lester in her Phiz, The Man Who Drew Dickens (2004), Hablot Knight Browne was adopted by William Loder Browne and his wife Katherine, but was in fact the illegitimate son of their eldest daughter and Captain Nicholas Hablot of Napoleon's Imperial Guard.His adoptive father died in Philadelphia in 1855, but having left England when the boy was seven, W. L. Browne seems to have made but slight impression upon the the future artist and engraver, who was chiefly influenced in youth by his brother-in-law, Elhanan Bicknell, a self-made businessman and self-taught collector of the works of such modern artists as J. M. W. Turner .

According to Phiz biographer and lineal descendant Valerie BROWNE Lester in her Phiz, The Man Who Drew Dickens (2004), Bicknell, recognizing Browne's artistic potential, arranged for his apprenticeship under the brothers Finden, a firm of London engravers. However, Browne soon tired of the laborious task of engraving, and took to etching and watercolour painting. His proficiency as an etcher was recognized when he was awarded the Society of Arts' medal for his etching of "John Gilpin's Ride" (1833), which, though crude, shows his considerable skill in drawing horses (especially evident in his plates for Charles Lever's "horse-racious" and pugnacious Irish novels and Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities ). In 1834, after numerous truancies (in fact, occasioned by frequent visits to the British Museum), Browne cancelled his indentures, and set up shop with Robert Young, a fellow Finden's apprentice, as an etcher, engraver, and illustrator. Meantime, Charles Dickens , some three years older than Browne, was already a rising star in London literary circles.

Dickens's first full-length book, Sketches by Boz (836-7), collected from periodical publications, was illustrated by noted artist George Cruikshank. In June, 1836, Browne received his first commission with Dickens, the pamphlet Sunday under Three Heads . Chapman and Hall, the publishers, then enlisted Dickens to write the text to accompany a comic series of illustrations on Cockney sporting subjects, after the manner of Pierce Egan in Life in London; or, The Day and Night Scenes of Jerry Hawthorne, Esq., and his Elegant Friend Corinthia Tom (1821, illustrated by the Cruikshank brothers), with four etchings per month produced by thirty-eight-year-old illustrator Robert Seymour. No sooner had Chapman and Hall started the monthly part-publication of The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club begun, than young Dickens attempted to seize the reins of the enterprise, the result being Seymour's suicide. In 1836 Browne took over the illustrations when Dickens found the work of Robert W. Buss for The Pickwick Papers unsatisfactory, Browne's first two plates appearing in No. iv (July 1836).

Browne was a relative unknown replacing Seymour, a well-known artist and a highly experienced periodical cartoonist who had sold satirical prints in his own right. At first, Browne adopted the pseudonym "N. E. M. O." (Latin for "Nobody," the nom de guerre adopted by Ulysses in the Cyclops episode of Homer's Odyssey). Soon, however, he became "Phiz," an artistic name well suited for the creator of "phizzes" — delightful, effervescent drafts of humour and caricature, as seen in the third plate of Pickwick . Despite a certain woodenness of his figures and a sameness about his characters' faces, by the seventh number Phiz had hit his stride with "Mr. Pickwick in the Pound." In the 1838 redesigned plates for Pickwick the calibre of Phiz's work improved enormously. He maintained this collaborative relationship with Dickens until the end of the 1850s, an artistic partnership which enhanced his reputation with such other novelists as William Harrison Ainsworth, Frank Smedley, Augustus Mayhew, and Charles Lever.

In the summer of 1837, Browne accompanied Charles and Catherine Dickens on a holiday trip to Belgium; by the end of the year, he and Dickens were at work on a new picaresque novel, Nicholas Nickleby , research for which required their on-site investigation of several notorious Yorkshire schools. Browne illustrated ten of Dickens's fifteen novels, notably Martin Chuzzlewit and David Copperfield , but not any of the Christmas Books, which were illustrated by Punch artist John Leech and other well-known artists of the 1840s. The professional rift between Browne and Dickens probably owes something to way in which Dickens issued the weekly numbers of Household Words and its successor All the Year Round , for these tuppeny pulp journals were without illustration (Valerie Lester [2004] suggests a number of other reasons for the breakup). However, as the artist's son, Edgar Browne, says of A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens "also issued it independently in the usual green-covered monthly parts, with two illustrations by Hablot K. Browne. The two issues ran concurrently" (Phiz and Dickens, 22), the monthly part costing a shilling.

"When assembled as a monthly part, the pictures were tipped into the episode ahead of the text" (Cayzer, 4). In the closing double number, the reader would find two more illustrations, the Frontispiece and the Title-page. "Placed here they allow him to reflect upon what he has read. Later, placed at the front of a bound copy of the novel, they also announce the main themes and concerns of the book" (36). Cayzer's remarks, of course, could be applied to any previous Dickens novel that Browne had illustrated, including the most recent, Little Dorrit (1857). The exceptions are The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge, both of which were illustrated by wood engravings dropped into the text of Master Humphrey's Clock. One naturally wonders what went so wrong with the illustrations for A Tale of Two Cities that prompted Dickens to terminate so abruptly a collaborative relationship that had lasted over two decades. From the momentous time when the monthly parts of Pickwick revolutionized British publishing , Dickens had customarily collaborated with such artists as Seymour, Cruikshank, Browne, and Cattermole on the illustrations of his works.

However, when it came to the weekly serialisation of his shorter novels Hard Times (1854), A Tale of Two Cities (1859), and — Great Expectations (1860-61) in his own periodicals there was no such collaboration. Aware that his friend's work was becoming somewhat old-fashioned, Dickens severed an artistic relationship that had resulted in more than five hundred wrapper designs, title vignettes, and full-page illustrations for ten novels. Since Dickens and Browne had collaborated for twenty-three years, the artist was much upset at "Dickens's strangely silent manner of breaking the connection." Writing to his friend and assistant, Robert Young, shortly before the publication of Great Expectations in late 1860), the artist remarks that Marcus [Stone] is no doubt to do Dickens. I have been a 'good boy' I believe. The plates in hand are all in good time, so that I do not know what's 'up' any more than you. Dickens probably thinks a new hand would give his old puppets a fresh look, or perhaps he does not like my illustrating Trollope neck-and-neck with him — though, by Jingo, he need have no rivalry there!

Confound all authors and publishers, I say. There is no pleasing one or t'other. I wish I had never had anything to do with the lot." [cited in Hammerton, 42] Ironically, although subsequent editions of A Tale of Two Cities were illustrated by 'new hands' (Marcus Stone and Fred Barnard in Great Britain, John McLenan in the Harper's Weekly serial in America), it is still Phiz's plates that have been most commonly chosen to accompany the text, as in the cases of The Penguin English Library Edition (1970) and The Oxford Illustrated Dickens (1948), "remarkably tame and lacking in dramatic spirit" (Hammerton, 430) as some, including paratextual Dickensian Michael Steig, may find them.

The note of bitterness about all publishers and novelists in the closing of his letter to Young indicates that Browne sensed he was near the end of his career as an illustrator; in fact, he was already approaching the end of his working life, for in 1867 he suffered a stroke which limited his ability to produce illustrations of the quantity and quality that he had heretofore turned out, although he did not die until 12 July 1882. Michael Steig in Dickens and Phiz notes that, while Browne's early Dickens plates are characterized by the artist's "use of iconographic techniques developed by Hogarth and his followers, especially emblematic detail" these diminish after David Copperfield, "disappearing entirely from the sixteen illustrations for A Tale of Two Cities" (3). From 1836 until 1859, Browne served as illustrator-in-chief of Dickens's writings, ten of the novels (as noted above) being illustrated by him in etching or in wood-engraving, besides various "extra illustrations," and numerous duplicate etchings.

In the series of plates for A Tale of Two Cities, Steig notes a falling off in clarity and expressiveness, but recent research Philip V. Allingham to David Parker, Professor Emeritus, Kingston University, London has shown that Chapman and Hall, after the monthly serial run, substituted poorly bitten lithographs for Phiz's original etchings. Steig, however, attributes the breakup of the collaboration to Dickens's quest for a more contemporary "feel" in the illustrations for his later works: A Tale of Two Cities . . . was the last of the novels upon which he was engaged, but there was no rupture in the friendship which had so long subsisted between him and Dickens, and we can only attribute the change to the very natural desire of the author to have his fiction illustrated by an artist of the younger school, whom he found in the son of his old friend, Frank Stone, A. R. A. [Hammerton, 10] However, as Valerie Lester points out, Dickens appears to have felt put out by Phiz's unwillingness to discuss the illustrations as the pair had been accustomed to do. In "To Edward Chapman, 6 Oct.

1859," Dickens complains to his publisher: "I have not yet seen any sketches from Mr. Browne for No. 6 [to be published 31 Oct. 1859]. Will you see to this, without loss of time" (Letters Vol. 9: 36). The Pilgrim editors note that Dickens "May have felt that Browne was dilatory and have resented the fact that he was simultaneously providing numerous illustrations for Once a Week. When the book was published as a volume, CD had his own copy bound without the plates." The rival weekly was one of the new, illustrated sort, and the other serialised novel on which Phiz had been working was Charles Lever's Davenport Dunn (1857-59), the plates for which Steig pronounces "more interesting than those for Dickens' novel" because of their incisive lines, "greater attention to detail, and a depiction of human figures which is charged with life and energy" (32).

Thus, Dickens may well have felt that Phiz's superior work for Once a Week was preventing the illustrator from adhering to Chapman and Hall's publishing deadlines for the monthly numbers of A Tale of Two Cities, and that Phiz was failing to clear his conceptions at the draft stage with the novelist, who valued the opportunity to propose alterations and adjustments in the narrative-pictorial sequence in order to render it a more effective complement to his own letter-press. Dickens failed to adapt his works to this new form, and seems for a time to have lost his former interest in illustration — for the first volume edition of Great Expectations (1861), for example, there were no illustrations at all. Only for the Library Edition of 1862 did Dickens decide that his curious story of Pip and the convict needed such embellishment, to be provided by one of the new generation of illustrators, Marcus Stone (all other illustrations for unpiratedBritish editions of Great Expectations were not executed until after Dickens's death, although American graphic artist John McLenan supplied a series of 40 illustrations for the novel's serial run in Harper's Weekly in the United States, 34 of which were subsequently reproduced in the T. B.

Peterson single-volume edition of 1861). How strange was this apparent neglect in Dickens, who in producing the Christmas Books in the 1840s had worked so closely with such notable illustrators as John Leech , Clarkson Stanfield , John Tenniel , Richard Doyle , Daniel Maclise, Frank Stone, and Edward Landseer, developing the innovative technique of dropping the plates into the text. By 1862, however, Dickens was again considering artistic collaboration with some of the bright, young artists who were working on the new illustrated magazines, especially Luke Fildes, the "fanciful man" who served as the illustrator of his last novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870). Peter Ackroyd, author of a best-selling biography of Dickens, notes that the quality of Browne's work for Dickens had been falling off prior to 1859, and feels that Browne's "illustrations for A Tale of Two Cities were woefully sketchy and undramatic" (4).

The really important fact remains, however, that the particular symbiotic relationship between writer and artist had nowdisappeared; Dickens no longer needed Browne to give visual strength to his imaginative conceptions, and Browne had ceased to develop and enlarge his range in response to Dickens's own progress as an artist. [141-42] The termination of the Dickens-Phiz collaboration coincided with the close of the Romantic period of nineteenth-century book-illustration (1820-60), which was both exotic and Gothic. However, there was no marked falling off in Phiz's productivity until the stroke he suffered in 1867 partially paralyzed his right arm. His most prolific year was 1857, when he illustrated ten books, including two each by Fielding, Smollett, and Lever, as well as works by Dickens (Little Dorrit), Halse, Mayhew, and Ainsworth. In contrast, from 1867 to 1882 he provided illustrations for only one or two books annually. After 1878, he was assisted by an annuity from the Royal Academy.

Phiz did no further etchings after his debilitating illness of 1867. Despite the partial paralysis caused by the stroke, however, he continued to produce illustrations for the publishing trade, providing designs for his seven of own books from 1868 to 1882. Moreover, during the last seven years of his life, he completed all the program of pictorial accompaniment for the 31-volume "Harry Lorrequer" Edition of Charles Lever's novels (1876-1878), plates for George Halse's A Salad of Stray Leaves. Since his illustrations which accompanied a complete edition of Shakespeare in 1882 are etchings, Valerie Browne Lester has concluded that the publisher had the plates on hand from a much earlier commission. With the renwed interest in Browne's work that occurred shortly after his death, the publisher (she theorizes) "remembered the plates and included them in an edition of Shakespeare" (private communication 11 June 2006) that was already planned. although he had refused throughout his life to work on Sundays, in his prime he etched four steels in ten working days — i.

e., about ten per month or 120 per year. Amazingly, between his 1867 stroke and his death in 1882 he produced approximately one thousand drawings, including 57 new cuts for The Pickwick Papers in the 1874 Household Edition of Dickens's works. Many other artists, notably Fred Barnard, supplied the illustrations for the other volumes in that Chapman and Hall edition, which contains a total of 866 plates. Although he continued working until his death in Brighton on 12 July 1882, just short of his sixty-seventh birthday, after Dickens's death in 1870 Hablot Knight Browne was very much a relic of an earlier artistic era. In the 1860s, a new form of serialisation had developed as the old method of part-publication (separate monthly instalments) was replaced by instalment publication in unillustrated literary journals, which were in turn replaced in the 1870s by such premium illustrated weekly magazines as Once A Week, and Good Words, and the prestigious monthly The Cornhill.

A satirist and caricaturist, Browne belonged to the school of Gilray and ultimately of Hogarth. Despite the fact that illustrators such as John McLenan in America continued to work in this mode, this humorous style suddenly looked outdated, especially in contrast to High Art of "The New Men of the Sixties," younger illustrators such as Marcus Stone and Luke Fildes, whose work shows the influence of the Pre-Raphaelite conception of beauty. Among the authors whose works that Browne illustrated, aside from the novelists already highlighted — W. H. Ainsworth , Henry Fielding, Tobias Smollett, and Charles Dickens — there were numerous minor writers, including Henry Winkles, Edward Caswall, James Grant, Stephen Oliver, R. S. Surtees, J. P. Robertson, G. W. M. Reynolds , G . H. Rodwell, W. J. Neale, Cornelius Mathews, G. T. Miller, Charles Rowcroft, J. C. Maitland, and F. E. Smedley, and a handful of major writers, including Sir Edward G. D.

Bulwer-Lytton , Sir Walter Scott , Sheridan Le Fanu, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Maria Edgeworth, and George Gordon, Lord Byron. Valerie Browne Lester in her recent biography of her great-great-grandfather lists eight works without definite date that Phiz illustrated in his twilight years, and, under the heading "Posthumous" (pp. 228-229) indicates that between 1883 and 1890 seven further works illustrated by the indefatigible Phiz appeared in print. Among the periodicals for which at one time or another he worked she gives the following among "occasional contributions": The New Monthly Magazine, Tinsley's Magazine, London Society, St. James's Magazine, The Illustrated Gazette, The Sporting Times, and The Welcome Guest. The following are the periodicals to which he was a more regular contributor: New Sporting Magazine, 1839-1843 Man in the Moon, 1847 Life, 1850 Autograph Mirror, 1865-1866 Judy, 1869-1882.

(page 229) With an artistic career spanning the period 1836 to 1882, Phiz was a practising illustrator for some 47 years — in other words, approximately a decade longer than Charles Dickens was a professional writer. In closing, I wish to acknowledge the assistance of Valerie Browne Lester in rooting out certain misconceptions about Phiz that had crept into my original Victorian Web biographical sketch of her great-great grandfather. [PVA] Bibliography Ackroyd, Peter. Dickens. London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1990. Allingham, Philip V. "'We Can Now See That the Days of Illustrated Novels Were Drawing to an End' — Not So." The Dickens Magazine. Haslemere, Surrey: Euromed Publications. Series 1, Issue 3, pp. 6-7. Bentley, Nicolas; Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. Oxford: UP, 1988. Browne, Edgar. Phiz and Dickens As They Appeared to Edgar Browne. London: James Nisbet, 1913. Buchanan-Brown, John. Phiz!

The Book Illustrations of Hablot Knight Browne. Newton Abbot, London, and Vancouver: David and Charles, 1978. Cayzer, Elizabeth. "Dickens and His Late Illustrators. A Change in Style: 'Phiz' and A Tale of Two Cities ." Dickensian 86, 3 (Autumn, 1990): 130-141. Dickens, Charles. (1859). A Tale of Two Cities, ed. George Woodcock. Il. Hablot Knight Browne. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970. Hammerton, J. A. The Dickens Picture-Book. London: Educational Book Co., 1904. Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz, The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004. The Letters of Charles Dickens, Pilgrim Edition. Ed. Madeline House, Graham Storey, and Kathleen Tillotson. Vol. 7 (1853-55), also ed. Angus Easson, 1993, and Vol. 9 (1859-61), ed.

Madeline House, Graham Storey, and Kathleen Tillotson, 1997. Oxford: Clarendon. Muir, Percy. Victorian Illustrated Books. London: B. T. Batsford, 1971. Page, Norman. A Dickens Companion. New York: Schocken, 1984. Patten, Robert. Charles Dickens and His Publishers. Oxford: Clarendon, 1978. Solberg, Sarah A. "A Note on Phiz's Dark Plates." Dickensian 76, 1 (1980): 40-41. Steig, Michael. Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington: Indiana U. P., 1978. Watts, Alan S. "Why Wasn't Great Expectations Illustrated?" The Dickens Magazine. Haslemere, Surrey: Bishops Printers. Series 1, Issue 2, pp. 8-9. Last modified 31 October 2005 David Perdue's Charles Dickens Page - Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations from later editions of Dickens Mr Peggotty and Emily Dick Swiveller and the Marchioness The Old Curiosity Shop F.

W. Pailthorpe Woodcut Woes It is easy to imagine the difficulty of reproducing an illustration made in pencil, with all of its subtle shades of light and dark lines, and engraving it onto a block of wood for the printing process. No matter the skill of the engraver, the artist was often dissatisfied with the result. Such is the case for the frontispiece of The Chimes by Daniel Maclise . He voices his displeasure with the woodcut in this letter to John Forster : "My dear F.,-I can never hope to get you to understand how I am mortified and humiliated by the effect of these damnable cuts. It really is too much to be called upon to submit to, to be shown up in these little dirty scratches and to have one's name blazoned as if one was proud of them. I wish to Heaven you would have my name cut out from the corners, that at least I might have the benefit of the doubt as to which of the blots is mine. I would give anything that I had kept to my original notion and had nothing to do with the thing. . . .

I wish you had left me that last one; I would have tried to beguile myself with a belief that it might be improved. My curses light upon the miserable dog that produced it - I don't mean myself. Ever yours, See Maclise's frontispiece for The Chimes Sometimes the practice of reversing (or not reversing) the drawing to the printing plate for etching caused confusion as in these illustrations by Phiz for Dombey and Son where Captain Cuttle's hook changes from his left arm to his right. The publication of illustrations in the nineteenth century was a laborious and time-consuming process. The two primary methods of graphic reproduction used in the publication of illustrations for Dickens' works were etching and wood engraving. Wood Engraving Wood engraving was a mechanical process in which the drawing was transferred to a wood block using transfer paper. The engraver would then cut away the wood in areas where there were no lines, leaving the drawing in high relief. Since the lines to be printed were raised, like the type, the illustration could be inserted into the page along with the text.

Wood engraving was usually done by a craftsman other than the original illustrator, faithful reproduction of the illustration depended largely on the skill of the engraver. Wood engravers who supplied cuts for the illustrations in Dickens included Ebenezer Landells , Charles Grey, Samuel Williams , and the Brothers Dalziel . The signature or initials of the engraver often accompanied the signature of the artist on the finished block. Etching Etching was a mechanical / chemical process in which a steel or copper plate is coated with a wax "ground" to which the illustration was transferred. The illustrator would then use special needles to cut through the ground, following the transferred image, and exposing the bare metal below. The next step involved washing the plate in an acid bath, the ground protected the metal from the acid except in areas where the illustration had been cut through the ground. The result was that lines from the illustration were bitten into the metal by the acid. Because this process produced a printing plate with the image recessed into the metal, a special printing method called intaglio was used to print the illustration. Intaglio printing involved inking the plate, wiping the ink from the plate surface, and applying specially treated paper at high pressure to press the paper into the inked lines.

Illustrations produced by this method were printed separately from the type and inserted into the publication apart from the text. Dickens' illustrators like George Cruikshank and Hablot Browne were also skilled in etching the printing plates and followed their illustrations through the entire process. Due to Dickens' immense popularity, large press runs were needed to meet the demand for the monthly, or weekly, parts. Steel plates used to print the illustrations, because of the repeated wiping of the plate's surface and the high pressure used in the printing process, wore out and needed to be re-etched halfway through each press run, causing slight differences in the illustration. Illustrations printed via wood block held up longer and could withstand around 100,000 impressions. Wikipedia George Cruikshank (1792-1878) One of the greatest illustrators of his time, Cruikshank came from a family of artists. Dickens met Cruikshank through John Macrone , publisher for successful writer William Harrison Ainsworth , Macrone suggested that Dickens' sketches should be put together in a book, illustrated by Cruikshank. The result was Sketches by Boz published in 1836.

Cruikshank would later illustrate Dickens' Oliver Twist and was an actor in some of the plays done by Dickens' amateur company. Cruikshank, formerly a prodigious imbiber, would later become a staunch supporter of the temperance movement. After Dickens' death Cruikshank claimed that the plot and many of the characters from Oliver Twist had been his idea, which Dickens' friend and biographer vehemently denied. Sample George Cruikshank Illustrations Phizes | Article about phizes by The Free Dictionary Phizes | Article about phizes by The Free Dictionary Also found in: Dictionary , Thesaurus . Phiz: see Browne, Hablot Knight Browne, Hablot Knight , pseud. Phiz, 1815–82, English illustrator. At 21 he was chosen by Charles Dickens to illustrate Pickwick Papers. His success was immediate, and in due course he illustrated many of Dickens's novels as well as works of Harrison ..... Click the link for more information. . Phiz real name Hablot Knight Browne. 1815--82, English painter, noted for his illustrations for Dickens' novels Charles Dickens and Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne).

You are here: Home › Illustrators › Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne). Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne). Phiz, whose real name was Hablot Knight Browne (1815 – 1882) was an English artist, illustrator of books by Charles Dickens , Charles Lever and William Harrison Ainsworth . Meeting Dickens. In the spring of 1836, Hablot Browne was introduced to the author Charles Dickens. It was at the time when Dickens was looking for someone to illustrate The Pickwick Papers . Browne had been the illustrator of his little pamphlet Sunday under Three Heads . In the original edition of Pickwick, the first seven plates were drawn by Robert Seymour . However he committed suicide in April 1836 . The next two plates were by Robert William Buss. Browne and William Makepeace Thackeray visited the publishers’ office with specimens of their work for Dickens’s inspection. The novelist preferred Browne. Browne’s first two etched plates for Pickwick were signed “Nemo,” but the third was signed “Phiz,” a pseudonym which was retained in future.

When asked to explain why he chose this name he answered that the change from “Nemo” to “Phiz” was made to harmonize better with Dickens’s “Boz.” Illustration of a fight involving Nicholas Nickleby by Phiz. The story was inspired by a trip Phiz made with Charles Dickens. Working with Dickens. Phiz developed the character Sam Weller graphically just as Seymour had developed Pickwick. Dickens and Phiz became good friends and in 1838 travelled together to Yorkshire to see the schools of which Nicholas Nickleby became the hero: afterwards they made several journeys of this nature in company to facilitate the illustrator’s work. Other Dickens characters illustrated by Phiz were Squeers, Micawber, Guppy, Major Bagstock, Mrs Gamp, Tom Pinch and David Copperfield.

Question: What was the real name of 'Phiz', the illustrator of some of Charles Dickens' works?
Answer: (Hablot Knight) Browne