David Perdue's Charles Dickens Page - Mrs Gamp Mrs. Gamp Mrs Gamp Martin Chuzzlewit - Condensed from Chapter 19 Even among the bizarre cast of characters in Dickens, Mrs Gamp is a piece of work. She is a nurse of sorts whose specialty lies in the polar extremities of life, the lying in and the laying out. Old Anthony Chuzzlewit has died and the undertaker Mould has recommended Mrs Gamp to Mr Pecksniff who is conducting her to the house of mourning. 'And so the gentleman's dead, sir! Ah! The more's the pity.' She didn't even know his name. 'But it's what we must all come to. It's as certain as being born, except that we can't make our calculations as exact. Ah! Poor dear!' She was a fat old woman, this Mrs Gamp, with a husky voice and a moist eye, which she had a remarkable power of turning up, and only showing the white of it. Having very little neck, it cost her some trouble to look over herself, if one may say so, at those to whom she talked.

She wore a very rusty black gown, rather the worse for snuff, and a shawl and bonnet to correspond. In these dilapidated articles of dress she had, on principle, arrayed herself, time out of mind, on such occasions as the present; for this at once expressed a decent amount of veneration for the deceased, and invited the next of kin to present her with a fresher suit of weeds; an appeal so frequently successful, that the very fetch and ghost of Mrs Gamp, bonnet and all, might be seen hanging up, any hour in the day, in at least a dozen of the second-hand clothes shops about Holborn. The face of Mrs Gamp--the nose in particular--was somewhat red and swollen, and it was difficult to enjoy her society without becoming conscious of a smell of spirits. Like most persons who have attained to great eminence in their profession, she took to hers very kindly; insomuch that, setting aside her natural predilections as a woman, she went to a lying-in or a laying-out with equal zest and relish. 'Ah!' repeated Mrs Gamp; for it was always a safe sentiment in cases of mourning. 'Ah dear!

When Gamp was summoned to his long home, and I see him a-lying in Guy's Hospital with a penny-piece on each eye, and his wooden leg under his left arm, I thought I should have fainted away. But I bore up.' Martin Chuzzlewit - Wikiquote Martin Chuzzlewit Jump to: navigation , search Martin Chuzzlewit (1843–1844) is a novel by Charles Dickens , the main theme of which is selfishness, portrayed in a satirical fashion using all the members of the Chuzzlewit family. The novel is also notable for one of Dickens' great villains, Seth Pecksniff, and the nurse Mrs. Gamp. Quotes[ edit ] What is exaggeration to one class of minds and perceptions, is plain truth to another. That which is commonly called a long–sight, perceives in a prospect innumerable features and bearings non–existent to a short–sighted person. I sometimes ask myself whether there may occasionally be a difference of this kind between some writers and some readers; whether it is ALWAYS the writer who colours highly, or whether it is now and then the reader whose eye for colour is a little dull? Preface.

Oh, Sairey, Sairey, little do we know what lays before us! Chapter I. Firstly, that it may be safely asserted, and yet without implying any direct participation in the Monboddo doctrine touching the probability of the human race having once been monkeys, that men do play very strange and extraordinary tricks. Secondly, and yet without trenching on the Blumenbach theory as to the descendants of Adam having a vast number of qualities which belong more particularly to swine than to any other class of animals in the creation, that some men certainly are remarkable for taking uncommon good care of themselves. Chapter 1. Any man may be in good spirits and good temper when he's well dressed. There an't much credit in that. If I was very ragged and very jolly, then I should begin to feel I had gained a point, Mr Pinch. Chapter 5. "There might be some credit in being jolly with a wife." Chapter 5. With affection beaming in one eye, and calculation shining out of the other. Referring to Mrs. Todgers Chapter 8. "Do not repine, my friends," said Mr. Pecksniff, tenderly. "Do not weep for me.

It is chronic." And with these words, after making a futile attempt to pull off his shoes, he fell into the fireplace. Chapter 9. Let us be moral. Let us contemplate existence. Chapter 9. "Regrets," said Martin, "are the natural property of grey hairs; and I enjoy, in common with all other men, at least my share of such inheritance." Chapter 10. Keep up appearances whatever you do. Chapter 11. Here's the rule for bargains — 'Do other men, for they would do you.' That's the true business precept. Chapter 11. If its individual citizens, to a man, are to be believed, it always is depressed, and always is stagnated, and always is at an alarming crisis, and never was otherwise; though as a body, they are ready to make oath upon the Evangelists, at any hour of the day or night, that it is the most thriving and prosperous of all countries on the habitable globe. Chapter 16. I believe no satirist could breathe this air. If another Juvenal or Swift could rise up among us tomorrow, he would be hunted down.

If you have any knowledge of our literature, and can give me the name of any man, American born and bred, who has anatomised our follies as a people, and not as this or that party; and who has escaped the foulest and most brutal slander, the most inveterate hatred and intolerant pursuit; it will be a strange name in my ears, believe me. Chapter 16. Dollars! All their cares, hopes, joys, affections, virtues, and associations seemed to be melted down into dollars. Whatever the chance contributions that fell into the slow cauldron of their talk, they made the gruel thick and slab with dollars. Men were weighed by their dollars, measures were gauged by their dollars; life was auctioneered, appraised, put up, and knocked down for its dollars. The next respectable thing to dollars was any venture having their attainment for its end. The more of that worthless ballast, honour and fair-dealing, which any man cast overboard from the ship of his Good Nature and Good Intent, the more ample stowage-room he had for dollars. Make commerce one huge lie and mighty theft.

Deface the banner of the nation for an idle rag; pollute it star by star; and cut out stripe by stripe as from the arm of a degraded soldier. Do anything for dollars! What is a flag to them! Chapter 16. Buy an annuity cheap, and make your life interesting to yourself and everybody else that watches the speculation. Chapter 18. Leave the bottle on the chimley-piece, and don't ask me to take none, but let me put my lips to it when I am so dispoged, and then I will do what I'm engaged to do, according to the best of my ability. Chapter 19. Rich folks may ride on camels, but it an't so easy for 'em to see out of a needle's eye. That is my comfort, and I hope I knows it. Chapter 25. "I'll tell you what, my dear," he observed, when Mrs Gamp had at last withdrawn and shut the door, "that's a ve-ry shrewd woman. That's a woman whose intellect is immensely superior to her station in life. That's a woman who observes and reflects in an uncommon manner.

She's the sort of woman now," said Mould, drawing his silk handkerchief over his head again, and composing himself for a nap "one would almost feel disposed to bury for nothing; and do it neatly, too!" Chapter 25. He'd make a lovely corpse. Chapter 25. But charity begins at home, and justice begins next door. Chapter 27. Our fellow-countryman is a model of a man, quite fresh from Natur's mold! Chapter 34. Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration. Chapter 35. "I could have bore it with a thankful art. But the words she spoke of Mrs Harris, lambs could not forgive. No, Betsey!" said Mrs Gamp, in a violent burst of feeling, "nor worms forget!" Chapter 49. "Mr. Pecksniff on his Mission" by Phiz — seventeenth illustration for Dickens's "The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit" (1910) Mr. Pecksniff on his Mission Phiz (Hablot K.

Browne) August 1843 Etching on steel "At the very first double knock, every window in the street became alive with female heads; and before he could repeat the performance, whole troops of married ladies (some about to trouble Mrs. Gamp themselves, very shortly) came flocking round the steps; all crying out with one accord . . ." — Chapter 19. Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham . [You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.] Commentary In his initial appearance, the arch hypocrite Seth Pecksniff is the butt of a joke as the wind off the Salisbury Plain makes sport of him, leaving him grovelling in the dark at the foot of his own steps. Here, in Phiz's sixteenth plate, Pecksniff is once again the subject of situation comedy, as the company assembled outside Mrs. Gamp's residence mistakenly believes that the stranger has come by cab to avail himself of her services as a midwife.

Like a good comedian, Phiz did not spoil the joke by making the mistake of rendering Pecksniff as a gross caricature for the illustrator realised that Dickens's physical and verbal humour would be much more effective if Pecksniff were rendered "straight." To maximize our enjoyment of Pecksniff's frustration and embarrassment in this scene, Dickens and Phiz require that we see him as a predatory hypocrite and an agent of the greedy Jonas. As the novel had developed month by month, Browne had become more and more resourceful at bringing out the humour of Dickens's prose, here, for example, setting the respectably clad bourgeois in the midst of a Hogarthian street scene in which a host of working-class women harangue and revile the professional man and street urchins deride him. And with nobody who matters to observe him, Pecksniff lets slip his pious mask to reveal discomfiture at being generally mistaken for an expectant husband. From the denizens of Holborn Pecksniff receives the verbal equivalent of the close shave advertised in Poll Sweedlepipe's shop window, to which a female hand points as Pecksniff attempts to locate the source of Mrs.

Gamp's voice above. Very much the dictatorial patriarch in his own home, Pecksniff looks distinctly uncomfortable as he is surrounded by toddlers, children, and a dozen women in a constricted space, hemmed in like the canary in the cage immediately above the absent bird-fancier's window. Since the etching so convincingly captures the teeming, female life of the London street, it might be instructive to determine which details provided by Dickens Phiz has elected to omit. The moment illustrated is Pecksniff's applying himself to Sweedlepipe's ineffectual knocker: At the very first double knock, every window in the street became alive with female heads; and before he could repeat the performance, whole troops of married ladies (some about to trouble Mrs. Gamp themselves, very shortly) came flocking round the steps; all crying out with one accord . . . . — Chapter 19, "The Reader is brought into Communication with some Professional Persons, and sheds a Tear over the Filial Piety of good Mr. Jonas." Already in the illustration Mrs.

Gamp (up right) seems to be crying, "I'm coming." However, instead of depicting a number of obviously pregnant women (images of advanced pregnancy then being deemed indecorous), Phiz has chosen merely to suggest the fecundity of the numerous women—four of whom are mere caricatures, but the remainder realistically described working-class women—by focusing in the foreground on a dozen children (rather than Dickens's "scores") who "hooted and defied Mr. Pecksniff quite savagely." Whereas in the letterpress, the children are not yet immediately evident and their mothers are still at their windows up and down the street as Pecksniff initially tries Poll Sweedlepipe's ineffectual knocker, Phiz has conflated several narrative moments into one to heighten the visual comedy. Only Mrs. Gamp is at her window, and Phiz has flooded the street with mothers and children. Nowhere in the scene is there a suggestion of the hackney cabriolet by which Pecksniff has arrived at Kingsgate Street, High Holborn.

Also conspicuously missing although specified by Dickens is the cat's meat warehouse, uncomfortably close to the celebrated mutton-pie shop (which Phiz's sign terms a "depot"). The London street scene is highly reminiscent of the sixteen original George Cruikshank illustrations for the John Macrone edition of Sketches by Boz (1836). Rhoda Flaxman in Victorian Word-Painting and Narrative (1987) explains that, in such instances, Dickens is anticipating a film technique, "for rendering kinetic action through the essentially frozen medium of verbal word-paintings . . . [as he] gradually accumulates increasingly dramatic details into itself in a quickly accelerating rhythm of repeated nouns, verbs, and prepositions" (30). The single-sentence commentary by the three neighbours is exchanged in Phiz's realisation for a single interlocutor leaning out the Dutch door beside the closed barber's door. After a paragraph delineating the mental postures of Pecksniff and Mrs. Gamp, she and he exchange a stichomythia-like series of questions and answers that contribute to the hilarity of the mistaken identity.

In the static visual medium of the etching intended to face the printed page, Phiz cannot work in this dramatic (indeed, one might well say "cinematic") fashion. He can, however, conflate a number of moments into one. Whereas Dickens builds the comedy of mistaken identity and intention layer by layer dynamically over the course of a few minutes as the "professional" Pecksniff is roundly denounced as a ghoul for introducing a corpse into a nursery, Phiz realizes these successive moments as a tableau, with Pecksniff standing forever at the barber's door, disconcerted and surrounded by the teeming life of the London street caught in a snapshot in contrast to his stasis. References Cohen, Jane Rabb. Charles Dickens and His Original Illustrators. Columbus: Ohio State U. P., 1980. Flaxman, Rhoda L. Victorian Word-Painting and Narrative: Toward the Blending of Genres. Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1987. Guerard, Albert J. "Martin Chuzzlewit: The Novel as Comic Entertainment." The Triumph of the Novel: Dickens, Dostoevsky, Faulkner.

Chicago & London: U. Chicago P., 1976. Pp. 235-260. Hammerton, J. A. Ch. 15, "Martin Chuzzlewit." The Dickens Picture-Book: A Record of the Dickens Illustrations with 600 Illustrations and a Frontispiece by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book, 1910. Pp. 266-293. Harvey, John R. Ch. 6, "Dickens and Browne: Martin Chuzzledwit to Bleak House." Victorian Novelists and Their Illustrators. London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1970. Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004. Steig, Michael. Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington and London: Indiana U. P., 1978. _____. "Martin Chuzzlewit's Progress by Dickens and Phiz." Dickens Studies Annual 2 (1972): 119-149. Martin Chuzzlewit - Introduction by G.K.

Chesterton Martin Chuzzlewit Next Chapter Introduction by G.K. Chesterton There is a certain quality or element which broods over the whole of Martin Chuzzlewit to which it is difficult for either friends or foes to put a name. I think the reader who enjoys Dickens's other books has an impression that it is a kind of melancholy. There are grotesque figures of the most gorgeous kind; there are scenes that are farcical even by the standard of the farcical license of Dickens; there is humour both of the heaviest and of the lightest kind; there are two great comic personalities who run like a rich vein through the whole story, Pecksniff and Mrs. Gamp; there is one blinding patch of brilliancy, the satire on American cant; there is Todgers's boarding-house; there is Bailey; there is Mr. Mould, the incomparable undertaker. But yet in spite of everything, in spite even of the undertaker, the book is sad. No one I think ever went to it in that mixed mood of a tired tenderness and a readiness to believe and laugh in which most of Dickens's novels are most enjoyed.

We go for a particular novel to Dickens as we go for a particular inn. We go to the sign of the Pickwick Papers. We go to the sign of the Rudge and Raven. We go to the sign of the Old Curiosities. We go to the sign of the Two Cities. We go to each or all of them according to what kind of hospitality and what kind of happiness we require. But it is always some kind of hospitality and some kind of happiness that we require. And as in the case of inns we also remember that while there was shelter in all and food in all and some kind of fire and some kind of wine in all, yet one has left upon us an indescribable and unaccountable memory of mortality and decay, of dreariness in the rooms and even of tastelessness in the banquet. So any one who has enjoyed the stories of Dickens as they should be enjoyed has a nameless feeling that this one story is sad and almost sodden. Dickens himself had this feeling, though his breezy vanity forbade him to express it in so many words. In spite of Pecksniff, in spite of Mrs.

Gamp, in spite of the yet greater Bailey, the story went lumberingly and even lifelessly; he found the sales falling off; he fancied his popularity waning, and by a sudden impulse most inartistic and yet most artistic, he dragged in the episode of Martin's visit to America, which is the blazing jewel and the sudden redemption of the book. He wrote it at an uneasy and unhappy period of his life; when he had ceased wandering in America, but could not cease wandering altogether; when he had lost his original routine of work which was violent but regular, and had not yet settled down to the full enjoyment of his success and his later years. He poured into this book genius that might make the mountains laugh, invention that juggled with the stars. But the book was sad; and he knew it. The just reason for this is really interesting. Yet it is one that is not easy to state without guarding one's self on the one side or the other against great misunderstandings; and these stipulations or preliminary allowances must in such a case as this of necessity be made first. Dickens was among other things a satirist, a pure satirist.

I have never been able to understand why this title is always specially and sacredly reserved for Thackeray. Thackeray was a novelist; in the strict and narrow sense at any rate, Thackeray was a far greater novelist than Dickens. But Dickens certainly was the satirist. The essence of satire is that it perceives some absurdity inherent in the logic of some position, and that it draws that absurdity out and isolates it, so that all can see it. Thus for instance when Dickens says, "Lord Coodle would go out; Sir Thomas Doodle would n't come in; and there being no people to speak of in England except Coodle and Doodle the country has been without a Government"; when Dickens says this he suddenly pounces on and plucks out the one inherent absurdity in the English party system which is hidden behind all its paraphernalia of Parliaments and Statutes, elections and ballot papers.

When all the dignity and all the patriotism and all the public interest of the English constitutional party conflict have been fully allowed for, there does remain the bold, bleak question which Dickens in substance asks, "Suppose I want somebody else who is neither Coodle nor Doodle." This is the great quality called satire; it is a kind of taunting reasonableness; and it is inseparable from a certain insane logic which is often called exaggeration. Dickens was more of a satirist than Thackeray for this simple reason: that Thackeray carried a man's principles as far as that man carried them; Dickens carried a man's principles as far as a man's principles would go. Dickens in short (as people put it) exaggerated the man and his principles; that is to say he emphasised them. Dickens drew a man's absurdity out of him; Thackeray left a man's absurdity in him. Of this last fact we can take any example we like; take for instance the comparison between the city man as treated by Thackeray in the most satiric of his novels, with the city man as treated by Dickens in one of the mildest and maturest of his. Compare the character of old Mr.

Osborne in Vanity Fair with the character of Mr. Podsnap in Our Mutual Friend. In the case of Mr. Osborne there is nothing except the solid blocking in of a brutal dull convincing character. Vanity Fair is not a satire on the City except in so far as it happens to be true. Vanity Fair is not a satire on the City, in short, except in so far as the City is a satire on the City. But Mr. Podsnap is a pure satire; he is an extracting out of the City man of those purely intellectual qualities which happen to make that kind of City man a particularly exasperating fool. One might almost say that Mr. Podsnap is all Mr. Osborne's opinions separated from Mr. Osborne and turned into a character. In short the satirist is more purely philosophical than the novelist. The novelist may be only an observer; the satirist must be a thinker. He must be a thinker, he must be a philosophical thinker for this simple reason; that he exercises his philosophical thought in deciding what part of his subject he is to satirise.

You may have the dullest possible intelligence and be a portrait painter; but a man must have a serious intellect in order to be a caricaturist. He has to select what thing he will caricature. True satire is always of this intellectual kind; true satire is always, so to speak, a variation or fantasia upon the air of pure logic. The satirist is the man who carries men's enthusiasm further than they carry it themselves. He outstrips the most extravagant fanatic. He is years ahead of the most audacious prophet. He sees where men's detached intellect will eventually lead them, and he tells them the name of the place -- which is generally hell. Now of this detached and rational use of satire there is one great example in this book. Even Gulliver's Travels is hardly more reasonable than Martin Chuzzlewit's travels in the incredible land of the Americans. Before considering the humour of this description in its more exhaustive and liberal aspects, it may be first remarked that in this American part of Martin Chuzzlewit, Dickens quite specially sharpens up his own mere controversial and political intelligence.

There are more things here than anywhere else in Dickens that partake of the nature of pamphleteering, of positive challenge, of sudden repartee, of pugnacious and exasperating query, in a word of everything that belongs to the pure art of controversy as distinct not only from the pure art of fiction but even also from the pure art of satire I am inclined to think (to put the matter not only shortly but clumsily) that Dickens was never in all his life so strictly clever as he is in the American part of Martin Chuzzlewit. There are places where he was more inspired, almost in the sense of being intoxicated, as, for instance, in the Micawber feasts of David Copperfield; there are places where he wrote more carefully and cunningly, as, for instance, in the mystery of The Mystery of Edwin Drood; there are places where he wrote very much more humanly, more close to the ground and to growing things, as in the whole of that admirable book Great Expectations. But I do not think that his mere abstract acuteness and rapidity of thought were ever exercised with such startling exactitude as they are in this place in Martin Chuzzlewit.

It is to be noted, for instance, that his American experience had actually worked him up to a heat and habit of argument. A slave-owner in the Southern States tells Dickens that slave-owners do not ill-treat their slaves, that it is not to the interest of slave-owners to ill-treat their slaves. Dickens flashes back that it is not to the interest of a man to get drunk, but he does get drunk. This pugnacious atmosphere of parry and riposte must first of all be allowed for and understood in all the satiric excursus of Martin in America. Dickens is arguing all the time; and, to do him justice, arguing very well. These chapters are full not merely of exuberant satire on America in the sense that Dotheboys Hall or Mr. Bumble's Workhouse are exuberant satires on England. They are full also of sharp argument with America as if the man who wrote expected retort and was prepared with rejoinder. The rest of the book, like the rest of Dickens's books, possesses humour. This part of the book, like hardly any of Dickens's books, possesses wit.

The republican gentle man who receives Martin on landing is horrified on hearing an English servant speak of the employer as "the master." "There are no masters in America," says the gentleman. "All owners are they?" says Martin. This sort of verbal promptitude is out of the ordinary scope of Dickens; but we find it frequently in this particular part of Martin Chuzzlewit. Martin himself is constantly breaking out into a controversial lucidity, which is elsewhere not at all a part of his character. When they talk to him about the institutions of America he asks sarcastically whether bowie knives and swordsticks and revolvers are the institutions of America. All this (if I may summarise) is expressive of one main fact. Being a satirist means being a philosopher. Dickens was not always very philosophical; but he had this permanent quality of the philosopher about him, that he always remembered people by their opinions. Elijah Pogram was to him the man who said that "his boastful answer to the tyrant and the despot was that his bright home was the land of the settin' sun." Mr. Scadder and Mr.

Jefferson Brick were to him the men who said (in cooperation) that "the libation of freedom must sometimes be quaffed in blood." And in these chapters more than anywhere else he falls into the extreme habit of satire, that of treating people as if there were nothing about them except their opinions. It is therefore difficult to accept these pages as pages in a novel, splendid as they are considered as pages in a parody. I do not dispute that men have said and do say that "the libation of freedom must sometimes be quaffed in blood," that "their bright homes are the land of the settin' sun," that "they taunt that lion," that "alone they dare him," or "that softly sleeps the calm ideal in the whispering chambers of imagination." I have read too much American journalism to deny that any of these sentences and any of these opinions may at some time or other have been uttered. I do not deny that there are such opinions. But I do deny that there are such people. Elijah Pogram had some other business in life besides defending defaulting postmasters; he must have been a son or a father or a husband or at least (admirable thought) a lover. Mr.

Chollop had some moments in his existence when he was not threatening his fellow-creatures with his swordstick and his revolver. Of all this human side of such American types Dickens does not really give any hint at all. He does not suggest that the bully Chollop had even such coarse good-humour as bullies almost always have. He does not suggest that the humbug Elijah Pogram had even as much greasy amiability as humbugs almost invariably have. He is not studying them as human beings, even as bad human beings; he is studying them as conceptions, as points of view, as symbols of a state of mind with which he is in violent disagreement. To put it roughly, he is not describing characters, he is satirising fads. To put it more exactly, he is not describing characters; he is persecuting heresies. There is one thing really to be said against his American satire; it is a serious thing to be said: it is an argument, and it is true. This can be said of Martin's wanderings in America, that from the time he lands in America to the time he sets sail from it he never meets a living man. He has travelled in the land of Laputa.

All the people he has met have been absurd opinions walking about. The whole art of Dickens in such passages as these consisted in one thing. It consisted in finding an opinion that had not a leg to stand on, and then giving it two legs to stand on. So much may be allowed; it may be admitted that Dickens is in this sense the great satirist, in that he can imagine absurd opinions walking by themselves about the street. It may be admitted that Thackeray would not have allowed an absurd opinion to walk about the street without at least tying a man on to it for the sake of safety. But while this first truth may be evident, the second truth which is the complement of it may easily be forgotten. On the one hand there was no man who could so much enjoy mere intellectual satire apart from humanity as Dickens. On the other hand there was no man who, with another and more turbulent part of his nature, demanded humanity, and demanded its supremacy over intellect, more than Dickens. To put it shortly: there never was a man so much fitted for saying that everything was wrong; and there never was a man who was so desirous of saying that everything was right.

Thus, when he met men with whom he violently disagreed, he described them as devils or lunatics; he could not bear to describe them as men. If they could not think with him on essentials he could not stand the idea that they were human souls; he cast them out; he forgot them; and if he could not forget them he caricatured them. He was too emotional to regard them as anything but enemies, if they were not friends. He was too humane not to hate them. Charles Lamb said with his inimitable sleek pungency that he could read all the books there were; he excluded books that obviously were not books, as cookery books, chessboards bound so as to look like books, and all the works of modern historians and philosophers One might say in much the same style that Dickens loved all the men in the world; that is he loved all the men whom he was able to recognise as men; the rest he turned into griffins and chimeras without any serious semblance to humanity. Even in his books he never hates a human being. If he wishes to hate him he adopts the simple expedient of making him an inhuman being.

Now of these two strands almost the whole of Dickens is made up; they are not only different strands, they are even antagonistic strands. I mean that the whole of Dickens is made up of the strand of satire and the strand of sentimentalism; and the strand of satire is quite unnecessarily merciless and hostile, and the strand of sentimentalism is quite unnecessarily humanitarian and even maudlin. On the proper interweaving of these two things depends the great part of Dickens's success in a novel. And by the consideration of them we can probably best arrive at the solution of the particular emotional enigma of the novel called Martin Chuzzlewit. Martin Chuzzlewit is, I think, vaguely unsatisfactory to the reader, vaguely sad and heavy even to the reader who loves Dickens, because in Martin Chuzzlewit more than anywhere else in Dickens's works, more even than in Oliver Twist, there is a predominance of the harsh and hostile sort of humour over the hilarious and the humane. It is absurd to lay down any such little rules for the testing of literature. But this may be broadly said and yet with confidence: that Dickens is always at his best when he is laughing at the people whom he really admires.

He is at his most humorous in writing of Mr. Pickwick, who represents passive virtue. He is at his most humorous in writing of Mr. Sam Weller, who represents active virtue. He is never so funny as when he is speaking of people in whom fun itself is a virtue, like the poor people in the Fleet or the Marshalsea. And in the stories that had immediately preceded Martin Chuzzlewit he had consistently concerned himself in the majority of cases with the study of such genial and honourable eccentrics; if they are lunatics they are amiable lunatics. In the last important novel before Martin Chuzzlewit, Barnaby Rudge, the hero himself is an amiable lunatic. In the novel before that, The Old Curiosity Shop, the two comic figures, Dick Swiveller and the Marchioness, are not only the most really entertaining, but also the most really sympathetic characters in the book. Before that came Oliver Twist (which is, I have said, an exception), and before that Pickwick, where the hero is, as Mr.

Weller says, "an angel in gaiters." Hitherto, then, on the whole, the central Dickens character had been the man who gave to the poor many things, gold and wine and feasting and good advice; but among other things gave them a good laugh at himself. The jolly old English merchant of the Pickwick type was popular on both counts. People liked to see him throw his money in the gutter. They also liked to see him throw himself there occasionally. In both acts they recognised a common quality of virtue. Now I think it is certainly the disadvantage of Martin Chuzzlewit that none of its absurd characters are thus sympathetic. There are in the book two celebrated characters who are both especially exuberant and amusing even for Dickens, and who are both especially heartless and abominable even for Dickens -- I mean of course Mr. Pecksniff on the one hand and Mrs. Gamp on the other. The humour of both of them is gigantesque. Nobody will ever forget the first time he read the words "Now I should be very glad to see Mrs. Todgers's idea of a wooden leg." It is like remembering first love: there is still some sort of ancient sweetness and sting.

I am afraid that, in spite of many criticisms to the contrary, I am still unable to take Mr. Pecksniff's hypocrisy seriously. He does not seem to me so much a hypocrite as a rhetorician; he reminds me of Serjeant Buzfuz. A very capable critic, Mr. Noyes, said that I was wrong when I suggested in another place that Dickens must have loved Pecksniff. Mr. Noyes thinks it clear that Dickens hated Pecksniff. I cannot believe it. Hatred does indeed linger round its object as much as love; but not in that way. Dickens is always making Pecksniff say things which have a wild poetical truth about them. Hatred allows no such outbursts of original innocence. But however that may be the broad fact remains -- Dickens may or may not have loved Pecksniff comically, but he did not love him seriously; he did not respect him as he certainly respected Sam Weller. The same of course is true of Mrs. Gamp. To any one who appreciates her unctuous and sumptuous conversation it is difficult indeed not to feel that it would be almost better to be killed by Mrs.

Gamp than to be saved by a better nurse. But the fact remains. In this book Dickens has not allowed us to love the most absurd people seriously, and absurd people ought to be loved seriously. Pecksniff has to be amusing all the time; the instant he ceases to be laughable he becomes detestable. Pickwick can take his ease at his inn; he can be leisurely, he can be spacious; he can fall into moods of gravity and even of dulness; he is not bound to be always funny or to forfeit the reader's concern, for he is a good man, and therefore even his dulness is beautiful, just as is the dulness of the animal. We can leave Pickwick a little while by the fire to think; for the thoughts of Pickwick, even if they were to go slowly, would be full of all the things that all men care for -- old friends and old inns and memory and the goodness of God. But we dare not leave Pecksniff alone for a moment. We dare not leave him thinking by the fire, for the thoughts of Pecksniff would be too frightful.

Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens: Character Summary Character Summary MAIN CHARACTERS THE ELDER MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT: a bitter gentleman who thinks money is the root of all evil MR. SETH PECKSNIFF: an architect who is admired for his virtue that runs a school that teaches gentlemen his trade, cousin to elder Martin Chuzzlewit MERCY PECKSNIFF: the girlish and gushing younger daughter of Mr. Pecksniff (sometimes called Merry) CHARITY PECKSNIFF: the sensible elder daughter of Mr. Pecksniff (sometimes called Cherry) JOHN WESTLOCK: a handsome man who used to be a student of Mr. Pecksniff until he offended him TOM PINCH: a student, confidante, and assistant of Mr. Pecksniff who worships him MRS.

LUPIN: landlady of the Blue Dragon, a widow who is still in her bloom MARY GRAHAM: an orphan that elder Martin Chuzzlewit takes in and gives a salary to be his companion THE YOUNGER MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT: grandson of elder Martin Chuzzlewit who is out to make his fortune MONTAGUE TIGG: a friend of Chevy’s; later president of the Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Life Assurance Company ANTHONY CHUZZLEWIT: brother of elder Martin Chuzzlewit who is very cunning JONAS CHUZZLEWIT: Anthony’s son, who is like his father MARK TAPELY: a young man who works at the Dragon that enjoys doing things that make him uncomfortable so that he can have merit in being happy despite them RUTH PINCH: Mr. Pinch’s sister, a governess MADAME TODGERS: owner of a boarding house the Pecksniffs stay at when he is in London BENJAMIN (BAILEY): boot boy for Madame Todgers who is given many names MR. JINKINS: the oldest lodger at Madame Todgers and longest of boarders, a bookkeeper MR.

AUGUSTUS MODDLE: the youngest gentleman lodger at Todgers who often feels misunderstood and abused by Jinkins MR. CHUFFEY: elderly man that is a clerk to Anthony Chuzzlewit who is extremely devoted to him MRS. SAIRAH (SAIREY) GAMP: a mid-wife, nurse, and a watcher of the dead MRS. HARRIS: Mrs. Gamp's friend that she always refers to, but who most people believe doesn't actually exist DOCTOR JOHN JOBLING: a popular physician who took care of Anthony Chuzzlewit and is employed by Tigg. MR. NADGETT: a secretive man that is hired by Tigg to make inquiries about people SUPPORTING CHARACTERS THE MATCHMAKER: A Spanish lady who married a Chuzzlewit in Spain whose son becomes involved in The Gunpowder Plot.

CHUZZLEWIT FAWKES: Chuzzlewit involved in The Gunpowder Plot DIGGORY CHUZZLEWIT: ancestor that constantly dined with Duke Humphrey, and gave away many of his possessions to a man he claimed was his uncle TOBY CHUZZLEWIT: Chuzzlewit whose paternal lineage is considered mean and low, though unknown, and who doesn’t clarify the matter on his deathbed. CHEVY SLYME, ESQUIRE: a member of the Chuzzlewit family that Pecksniff is sorry to know MR. SPOTTLETOE: a bald man with big whiskers, hot-tempered; married into the Chuzzlewit family MRS. SPOTTLETOE: Elder Martin Chuzzlewit’s niece, who had been a favorite. MRS. NED: widow of elder Martin Chuzzlewit’s brother, a disagreeable woman whose outlived three husbands THREE DAUGHTERS OF MRS.

NED: all spinsters and very masculine looking GRAND NEPHEW OF MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT: a very hairy Chuzzlewit FEMALE COUSIN: a very deaf Chuzzlewit who has a constant toothache, but has no problem participating in quarrels—even if she doesn’t know what they are about GEORGE CHUZZLEWIT: corpulent bachelor cousin of Martin Chuzzlewit TOLLMAN: a man who collects tolls on the road to Salisbury TOLLMAN’S WIFE: friendly to Mr. Pinch ORGANIST’S ASSISTANT: a friend of Tom Pinch’s who lets him play the organ at the church MR. TODGERS: Mrs.

Todgers husband, who left her to live in another country CAMBERWELL PORTER: servant that works for the family that employs Ruth Pinch CAMBERWELL FOOTMAN: servant that works for the family that employs Ruth Pinch SOPHIA: Thirteen year old that is one of Ruth Pinch's charges PUPIL’S MOTHER: woman who employs Ruth Pinch as governess PROPRIETOR: the pupil’s father GANDER: a witty gentleman who lodges at Madame Todgers boarding house SPORTING GENTLEMAN: a lodger at Todgers boarding house THEATRICAL GENTLEMAN: a lodger at Todgers boarding house DEBATOR: a lodger at Todgers boarding house LITERARY GENTLEMAN: a lodger at Todgers boarding house VOCAL GENTLEMAN: a lodger at Todgers boarding house SMOKER GENTLEMAN: a lodger at Todgers boarding house CONVIVAL GENTLEMAN: a lodger at Todgers boarding house BILL SIMMONS: a coach driver that takes Martin to London in exchange for his silk handkerchief DAVID: a pawnbroker young Martin sells his belongings to who is friendly with Tigg WOMAN WITH

 THREE CHILDREN: a woman Mark Tapely takes under his protection on the voyage to America COLONEL DIVER: sallow gentleman who is the editor of The New York Rowdy Journal.

CAPTAIN OF THE SCREW: Captain of the ship who is generous with champagne with editors of papers to get a good review. JEFFERSON BRICK: war correspondent of The New York Rowdy Journal, who looks much younger than he is MAJOR PAWKINS: owner of a boarding house in America MRS. PAWKINS: wife of Major Pawkins who runs the business side of the boarding house MRS. JEFFERSON BRICK: the wife of Jefferson Brick who looks as much of a child as he does, even after giving birth to two children. PROFESSOR MULLIT: a short gentleman with a red nose who severs ties with his father for having the wrong political opinion MR. BEVAN: a lodger at Pawkins who is ignored by the other gentlemen CICERO: a gray-haired black man that Mark Tapely hires, a former slave MR. NORRIS: an Irish man that is a friend of Mr. Bevan MISS NORRIS THE YOUNGER: Eighteen year old pretty girl MISS NORRIS THE ELDER: Twenty year old pretty girl MRS.

NORRIS: a woman that looks older than she is GRANDMOTHER NORRIS: a sharp-eyed, quick old lady MR. NORRIS JUNIOR: Son of Mr. Norris and brother to the girls GENERAL FLADDOCK: a friend of the Norris family that wears a cumbersome uniform. MR. MOULD: the undertaker Martin Chuzzlewit : Charles Dickens : 9780140436143 Martin Chuzzlewit By (author) Charles Dickens , Notes by Patricia Ingham Share US$9.71 US$14.00 You save US$4.29 Free delivery worldwide Add to basket Add to wishlist Description Charles Dickens's powerful black comedy of of hypocrisy and greed, Martin Chuzzlewit is edited with an introduction and notes by Patricia Ingham in Penguin Classics. The greed of his family has led wealthy old Martin Chuzzlewit to become suspicious and misanthropic, leaving his grandson and namesake to make his own way in the world. And so young Martin sets out from the Wiltshire home of his supposed champion, the scheming architect Pecksniff, to seek his fortune in America.

In depicting Martin's journey - an experience that teaches him to question his inherited self-interest and egotism - Dickens created many vividly realized figures: the brutish lout Jonas Chuzzlewit, plotting to gain the family fortune; Martin's optimistic manservant, Mark Tapley; gentle Tom Pinch; and the drunken and corrupt private nurse, Mrs Gamp. With its portrayal of greed, blackmail and murder, and its searing satire on America Dickens's novel is a powerful and blackly comic story of hypocrisy and redemption. In her introduction, Patricia Ingham examines characterization, the central themes of the novel, and Dickens's depiction of America. This edition also includes two new prefaces, Dickens's postscript written in 1868, his working papers, a note on Mrs Gamp's eccentric speech, a chronology, updated further reading, appendices and original illustrations by 'Phiz'. Charles Dickens is one of the best-loved novelists in the English language, whose 200th anniversary was celebrated in 2012.

His most famous books, including Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield and The Pickwick Papers, have been adapted for stage and screen and read by millions. If you enjoyed Martin Chuzzlewit, you might like Dickens's Dombey and Son, also available in Penguin Classics. show more Product details 129.54 x 193.04 x 40.64mm | 589.67g Publication date 38 b&w illustrations, notes ISBN10 Classics Review quote Martin Chuzzlewit is a dramatic serial on Masterpiece Theatre, a PBS television series presented by WGBH-TV, Boston, made possible by a grant from Mobil Corporation. show more About Charles Dickens Charles Dickens (1812-70) was a political reporter and journalist whose popularity was established by the phenomenally successful PICKWICK PAPERS (1836-7). His novels captured and held the public imagination over a period of more than thirty years. Dickens is considered one of the greatest novelists in the English language.

Patricia Ingham is Fellow of St Anne's College, Reader in English, and The Times Lecturer in English at the University of Oxford. show more Review Text This was one of Dickens's least successful books commercially; it would be a masterpiece for most other writers. It deals with an inheritance, that classic trope of Dickens's, and while it moves from farce to grim criminal psychology its main focus is on selfishness and hypocrisy. Martin and Jonas are both descendants of the brothers Chuzzlewit and are born and bred to the same selfishness - goods, after all, are not the only things that people inherit - and the novel charts their contrasting destinies. Following a period in America, where he is defrauded by the utopian Eden Land Company, Martin has pause to reconsider his life and returns to Britain having learned a lesson about the nature of generosity. Angus Wilson, the novelist and critic, thought Martin's cousin Jonas was a stunning creation. He wrote: 'In the development of the brilliantly drawn Jonas Chuzzlewit, under the stress of blackmail, from a vulgar money-grabbing brute into a murderer with a dark and complicated life of inner terrors and superstitions that would have done credit to Dostoevsky'.

Alongside the villainous Jonas, other characters people the book memorably: the fabulous hypocrite Pecksniff, and Mrs Gamp, the disreputable old nurse 'dispoged' to the not altogether occasional glass of gin. (Kirkus UK) show more Follow us Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens · OverDrive: eBooks, audiobooks and videos for libraries Classic Literature Fiction Martin Chuzzlewit, serialized in 1843-44, was one of Dickens' personal favorites. Featuring a colorful cast of characters, including the hypocritical Mr. Pecksniff, the disreputable Mrs. Gamp, and the evil Jonas Chuzzlewit, the novel exposes selfishness, hypocrisy, and fraud in polite society in England and America. Adobe EPUB eBook 991.5 KB Charles Dickens (Author) Charles Dickens (1812–1870), who was an English novelist, is one of the most popular writers of all time. He is known for chapter-closing cliffhangers in his serial-style novels, a mind for social reform, and memorable characters. His most popular...

Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens: Summary Chapter 19 Summary Chapter 19 CHAPTER 19 Jonas, not wanting to be accused of being stingy about funeral costs, tells Pecksniff not to spare any expense. Pecksniff has been to the undertaker, and that gentleman has referred him to Mrs. Gamp. Mrs. Gamp is a person who tends to births (as a mid-wife) and is a watcher of the dead. Mrs. Gamp, having been summoned to a birthing crisis to advise another mid-wife, is asleep. Pecksniff uses the doorknocker. It fails to rouse her, but it draws out all the neighborhood women. They tell him to knock at her window. Pecksniff follows their advice and successfully rouses Mrs. Gamp. Meanwhile, the neighborhood women critique Pecksniff’s appearance and wish he hadn’t bothered Mrs. Gamp. When Mrs. Gamp learns she is being summoned to a death, she asks whether it is one of several people that she knows. Pecksniff denies that he was sent by or knows any of these people. He tells her he was referred by the undertaker.

The neighbors, who consider births more important than deaths, think Pecksniff has no business being there and start insulting his appearance. He is very glad to leave. Mrs. Gamp says that a taste of liquor always gives her the nerve to stay up with the dead. Though she only claims to have a “taste”, her red nose indicates that she partakes more generously. When they arrive at the house, the undertaker remarks on what an excellent man Mr. Jonas is—ordering only the best for his father. He also comments on the well-known reputation of the deceased in the city. Mrs. Gamp goes to the chamber where Mr. Chuzzlewit’s body is lain out. Chuffey is with him. Pecksniff joins Jonas, who says he is inviting the doctor to the funeral so that he can tell everyone how hopeless his father’s case was—that it couldn’t be helped. Mrs. Gamp comes out, complaining that Chuffey is bothering her. Pecksniff goes to fetch Chuffey. Chuffey wails that Anthony died before him. His master had always been kind to him. They had gone to school together, and he reminisces about a trip they had made.

Pecksniff leads him away, leaving behind some spirits that Mrs. Gamp helps herself to. For a whole week, they brood. Jonas doesn’t want Pecksniff to leave him. He is aware of the body upstairs. He fears that every shadow and sound is his father’s ghost looking over his shoulder. Pecksniff orders a good feast and tries to console Jonas. Mrs. Gamp, Mr. Mould, and the funeral staff enjoy the feast. Mr. Mould reflects to Mrs. Gamp that people spend more money on deaths than births because they are trying to mend their hearts. Jonas has given his father an elaborate funeral procession. The doctor belabors the story of Anthony’s death, never reaching the end of it. Chuffey embarrasses everyone with his emotional display. They find him disgraceful. First, he ignores his handkerchief and uses his knuckles. Then he grieves loudly at the funeral. Everyone reproaches him. Jonas tells them to leave him alone. Chuffey isn’t in his right mind. Jonas will take care of him, just as his father asked him to. Everyone admires Mr. Jonas more.

Chuffey retires to the carriage. Jonas starts returning to his former self once the funeral occurs and the body is out of the house. Mrs. Gamp returns home, only to be summoned to a birth of twins. Mr. Mould dines with his family. The doctor goes to a wedding. It rains on the newly covered grave of Anthony Chuzzlewit. David Perdue's Charles Dickens Page - Martin Chuzzlewit Martin Chuzzlewit FAQ & Email At the death of Anthony Chuzzlewit Mr. Mould, the undertaker, provides the customary 19th century funeral which Dickens mocks in many of his novels. Paid mourners and mutes (most likely drunks) follow the hearse feigning grief for the departed. Those in attendance were provided black ribbons, gloves, and scarves. Black feathers adorned the horses and hearse. At Anthony's funeral the only person to feel honest emotion for the departed, Mr Chuffey, is rebuked by the other 'mourners'. Dickens' will directed that 'those attending my funeral wear no scarf, cloak, black bow, long hat-band, or other such revolting absurdity'.

Even among the bizarre cast of characters in Dickens, Mrs Gamp is a piece of work. She is a nurse of sorts whose specialty lies in the polar extremities of life, the lying in and the laying out. More... Dickens' life during the serialization of Martin Chuzzlewit Jan 1843 - Jul 1844 Son Francis Jeffrey (Frank) Dickens born June 1844 A falling out with publishers Chapman and Hall , brewing since A Christmas Carol wasn't as profitable as he hoped, Dickens moves to new publishers Bradbury and Evans . July 1844 After finishing Martin Chuzzlewit Dickens and family travel to Genoa, Italy for nearly a year. Martin Chuzzlewit - Published in monthly parts Jan 1843 - July 1844 | Illustrations | Locations Dickens sixth novel, written after taking a year off during which he visited America for the first time, was less than enthusiastically received. The novel deals with the greed of Old Martin's relatives, chiefly Mr. Pecksniff, hoping to inherit his wealth. In the sixth installment, hoping to fend off lagging sales, Dickens has young Martin Chuzzlewit, the old man's grandson, go off to America.

Dickens goes on to vent some of his ill feelings for the former colony he recently visited, American audiences were outraged. In preparing installments of Martin Chuzzlewit Dickens began developing a design for the entire novel in advance of the monthly numbers. This represents a change from his early novels and is further developed in his next novel, Dombey and Son . During the writing of Martin Chuzzlewit, and sales of the monthly parts disappointingly low, Dickens was experiencing financial difficulty. He had borrowed from his publishers for his American trip in 1842 and his wife Kate was expecting their fifth child. He responded by planning a small book for the Christmas season of 1843 which followed the theme of greed he was writing in Martin Chuzzlewit. The result was the classic A Christmas Carol , published in December 1843. Principal Characters: Dickens's " Sairey Gamp and Betsy Prig" by Harold Copping Approximately 7 x 5 inches (18.8 x 12.5 cm) From Character Sketches from Dickens, facing p. 76. Scanned image, caption, and commentary below by Philip V.

Allingham [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one. ] It is instructive to compare the original etching on steel by Hablot Knight Browne ("Phiz") with Copping's 1924 lithograph. According to critic Michael Steig, in the original serial of 1843-1844 Plate 35 (No. XVIII), "Mrs. Gamp propoges a toast," is the third and last [illustration in Phiz's narrative-pictorial program for the serial version of the novel] to feature Sairey Gamp in person. This famous illustration, depicting the moment immediately preceding the apostasy of Betsey Prig [the moment which Fred Barnard in the Household Edition chose instead], is by and large a faithful reproduction of Dickens' description of the scene, down to the bursting bandboxes, the pattens, the pictures over the mantel, the umbrella, and the garments looking like a hanged double of Sairey.

[DSA 2, 139] The scene which Copping has chosen to exemplify the comedic aspect of the picaresque novel, "Sairey Gamp and Betsey Prig," occurs in what was originally episode eighteen (chapter 49, "In Which Mrs. Harris, Assisted by a Teapot, is the Cause of a Division Between Friends," June 1844). Compare Copping's more realistic handling of his materials to Phiz's "Mrs. Gamp Propoges a Toast." Gone are the lovingly realized background details such as Sairey's additional outfits hanging above the friends about to experience a falling-out. In one of his prefaces to Martin Chuzzlewit, Dickens declares that his main object was "to exhibit in a variety of aspects the commonest of all vices; to show how selfishness propagates itself; and to what a grim giant it may grow, from small beginnings." In the person of Pecksniff he created a character that has become a by-word for hypocrisy, whilst other characters, such as Sairey Gamp and old Martin Chuzzlewit, have taken their place in the gallery of immortals.

On the reverse side, equally inimitable, are to be found Tom Pinch, Mark Tapley, Ruth Pinch, John Westlock, and scores of others. The selections made from the book represent these phases. Old Martin is introduced in the first excerpt, delightful Ruth Pinch and her brother in the next, whilst the immortal tea party of Sairey Gamp and Betsy Prig forms the third. [Matz 68] If, as Margaret Cardwell suggests in her introduction to the World's Classics edition of the novel (1984), "The reader wants Mrs. Gamp and Mr. Pecksniff to survive for ever, perpetually exhibiting the resilience which is theirs" (xiii), the reader's quintessential image of the indefatigable sick-room nurse is that provided by Phiz in "Mrs. Gamp propoges a toast," the captioned illustration for Chapter 49, "In Which Mrs. Harris, Assisted by a Teapot, is the Cause of a Division between Friends," Part 18 (June 1844) as the serial novel drew to its poetically just conclusion.

Although Dickens originally aligned her with the novel's deceivers and hypocrites, the voluble alcoholic grew beyond that original orientation in the minds and hearts of the Victorian novel-reading public, becoming an endearing figure, so that, though the novelist must have felt the necessity to expose Mrs. Harris as a product of Sairey's fecund imagination and verbal creativity, one senses that Dickens felt that he could bring himself to explode Mrs. Harris's inventor. Despite her considerable bulk, boozy discourse, and obvious humbug, Sairey Gamp is akin to thirty-four-year-old Charles Dickens in that she too has constructed a character for her own satisfaction and affirmation. Mrs. Harris exists primarily for the sake of advertisement, a fictive testimonial to the calibre of her friend's ministrations to those leaving this world and those entering it. Thus, the story-teller puts his reader in the odd position of ardently wishing to see Mrs. Harris dispatched as a Dickensian Bunbury, while feeling that Sairey should be left, psychologically speaking, intact.

The memorable passage realized by Phiz in 1844 and Copping in 1924 occurs just prior to an explosion of Betsey Prigg's exasperation at yet another allusion to Mrs. Harris: "Betsey," said Mrs. Gamp, filling her own glass, and passing the teapot, "I will now propoge a toast. My frequent pardner, Betsey Prig!" "Which, altering the name to Sairah Gamp; I drink," said Mrs. Prig "with love and tenderness." — Martin Chuzzlewit, chapter 59. All too soon, their mutual tenderness will suddenly morph into chagrin, rancour, and vituperation as Betsey, imbibing too freely of the gin-charged teapot, pronounces upon Mrs. Harris that fateful sentence of annihilation: "I don't believe there's no sich a person!" This falling out (or, confronting her latent disbelief) is all the more ironic in that Betsey, despite her employment in an institution (St.

Bartholomew's Hospital), is a virtual twin to Sairey, not only in physique (as Phiz's illustration demonstrates) but in her slatternly conduct, brutal exploitation of patients in her charge, and utter ignorance of the principles of her professional practice. Perhaps, therefore, the falling out is prompted by jealousy, in that Betsey cannot brook the notion of her confidant's having another crony, no matter how elusive. Copping seems to have studied Phiz's original illustration carefully, for although his perspective has shifted from a frontal ('theatrical') to a side view (in Copping's plate we must be standing to one side of Betsey Prig), the later artist has included the cupboard (immediately behind Sairey, denoted by her large hat), the edge of mantelpiece with the picture of Mrs. Harris, the assorted hat boxes, the mahogany chairs, the handle-less chest of drawers (depicted off-left in Phiz's plate), and the teapot strategically located between the imbibers. Since Copping has, as it were, zoomed in on the pair, he cannot show either the massive bed or the pair of gowns hanging above it.

A curious departure is the red fringed tablecloth Copping has added. Although equally corpulent, Copping's nurses have less cartoon-like, more realistic faces, in keeping with his more realistic style of portraiture. Whereas Phiz's figures are almost lost in the detailed realisation of Mrs. Gamp's room, presented as if it were a stage set, Harold Copping fills his frame with his two subjects, whose glasses are clearly gin-filled and somewhat larger than their counterparts in the original monthly etching. Much of the charm of Sairey Gamp in the Phiz illustrations is lost in Copping's coloured but relatively colourless character study of an overweight, bleary-eyed, ungracefully aging slattern. Patient, plodding realism is the wrong mode for visualizing the distinctive voice of Dickens's Sairey Gamp. The caricaturist Phiz, in contrast, presents the interior of the first floor front in all its detail as an extension of Sairey herself, jumbled, confused, whimsical, and thoroughly engaging: a Dickensian original, almost superfluous to the novel's plot but one of the best things in The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. References Cardwell, Margaret.

"Introduction." Charles Dicklens's The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit: His Relatives, Friends, and Enemies; Comprising All His Wills and His Ways: With an Historical Record of What He Did, and What He Didn't: Showing, Moreover, Who Inherited the Family Plate, Who Came in for the Silver Spoons, and Who for the Wooden Ladles. The Whole Forming a Complete Key to the House of Chuzzlewit. Edited by Boz. With Illustrations by "Phiz." (1843-44). Oxford and New York: Oxford U. P., 1984. Matz, B. W., and Kate Perugini; illustrated by Harold Copping. Character Sketches from Dickens. London: Raphael Tuck, 1924. Copy in the Paterson Library, Lakehead University. Steig, Michael. Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U. P., 1978. [ Complete text ] —. "Martin Chuzzlewit's Progress by Dickens and Phiz." Dickens Studies Annual 2 (1972): 119-149.

Last modified 15 February 2009

Question: Which Dickens novel features Pecksniff and Mrs Gamp?
Answer: Martin Chuzzlewit