"The Accomplices" by "Phiz" — ninth serial illustration for Dickens's "A Tale of Two Cities" (October, 1859) (original) (raw)

The Accomplices (facing p. 139) — Phiz's ninth serial illustration for Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. Steel engraving for Book II, Chapter XIX, "An Opinion" (originally in Part 5, October 1859). 9 cm high by 13.7 cm wide (3 ½ by 5 ⅜ inches), vignetted. Instalment No. 17 in the All the Year Round weekly numbers on 20 August. [Click on image to enlarge it.]

Passage Illustrated: Destroying the Cobbler's Bench from The Bastille

On the night of the day on which he left the house, Mr. Lorry went into his room with a chopper, saw, chisel, and hammer, attended by Miss Pross carrying a light. There, with closed doors, and in a mysterious and guilty manner, Mr. Lorry hacked the shoemaker’s bench to pieces, while Miss Pross held the candle as if she were assisting at a murder — for which, indeed, in her grimness, she was no unsuitable figure. The burning of the body (previously reduced to pieces convenient for the purpose) was commenced without delay in the kitchen fire; and the tools, shoes, and leather, were buried in the garden. So wicked do destruction and secrecy appear to honest minds, that Mr. Lorry and Miss Pross, while engaged in the commission of their deed and in the removal of its traces, almost felt, and almost looked, like accomplices in a horrible crime. [Book II, "Five Years Later," Chapter XIX, "An Opinion"]

Related Material

• A Tale of Two Cities 1859 — the last Dickens's novel "Phiz" Illustrated
• Costume Notes on A Tale of Two Cities
• List of Plates
• Compare the headnote vignette by John McLenan in Harper's Weekly Magazine 27 August 1859 (New York)
• McLenan's 27 August 1859 illustration in Harper's Weekly Magazine
• 25 Illustrations for Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities by Fred Barnard (from the household Edition, 1874)

Bibliography

Allingham, Philip V. "'Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities (1859) Illustrated: A Critical Reassessment of Hablot Knight Browne's Accompanying Plates." Dickens Studies. 33 (2003): 109-158.

Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities. Illustrated by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, November 1859.

Sanders, Andrew. "Introduction" to Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.

Woodcock, George. "Introduction" to Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970.

Created 5 September 2016
Last modified 30 October 2025