"Papa! What's money?" by W. H. C. Groome: second lithograph for Dickens's "Dombey and Son" (1900) (original) (raw)

Passage Anticipated: Mr. Dombey and Paul before the fire

On one of these occasions, when they had both been perfectly quiet for a long time, and Mr Dombey only knew that the child was awake by occasionally glancing at his eye, where the bright fire was sparkling like a jewel, little Paul broke silence thus:

"Papa! What’s money?"

The abrupt question had such immediate reference to the subject of Mr. Dombey’s thoughts, that Mr. Dombey was quite disconcerted.

"What is money, Paul?" he answered. "Money?"

"Yes," said the child, laying his hands upon the elbows of his little chair, and turning the old face up towards Mr. Dombey’s; ‘what is money?"

Mr. Dombey was in a difficulty. [Chapter VIII, "Paul’s Further Progress, Growth and Character," 98]

Commentary: Precedents and Influences

Working at the turn of the century on the small-scale, Collins Pocket Edition lithographs, Groome would have had several models for Paul and his father musing before the fire. Obvious sources would have been Phiz's Paul and Mrs. Pipchin (1846) and Barnard's Household Edition version of the a similar scene, but with Mr. Dombey instead of the elderly Brighton child-minder, Dombey and Son(1877). Late Victorian readers, however, would perhaps have identified another possible model, John Leech's political cartoon Paul and Mr. Dombey in Punch, in which the satirist has given Dombey the face of Lord John Russell and the boy the face of Sir Robert Peel. Groome's choice of subject here may well have influenced contemporary illustrator Harry Furniss's choice of scene for the frontispiece in the forthcoming Charles Dickens Library Edition, Dombey and Son (vol. 9, 1910), anticipating Chapter VIII, "Paul’s Further Progress, Growth and Character."

Relevant Illustrations from Other Editions (1846-1910)

Left: John Leech's cartoon Lord Russell as Paul Dombey (August 1847). Left of centre: Phiz's original fireside scene: Paul and Mrs. Pipchin (Dec., 1846). Right of centre: Harry Furniss's frontispiece for the novel: Dombey and Son(1910). Right: Harry Furniss's impressionist revision of the Phiz's original scene, Paul Puzzling Mrs. Pipchin (1910).

Left: Fred Barnard's Household Edition illustration of the father and son: Dombey and Son (1877). Right: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s frontispiece for the Diamond Edition: Dombey and Son(1867).

Bibliography

Dickens, Charles. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by W. H. C. Groome. London and Glasgow, 1900, rpt. 1934. 2 vols. in one.

Created 23 January 2021