"Philip in Church" by Fred Walker (original) (raw)

Philip in Church

Frederick Walker

August 1862

From the serialisation of W. M. Thackeray's The Adventures of Philip in Cornhill Magazine

Thackeray, mightily impressed by Walker's powers of illustration, closes ch. 31 thus: "There was a pretty group for the children to see and Mr. Walker to draw" (in later editions, Walker's name is replaced by "an artist"). Young Gilbert Dalziel of the famous engraving family was the original of the little boy; the pew itself Thackeray modelled on one he had seen in the church at Queen Square, Bloomsbury. Thackeray's suggestion was "The little sister, and the two little children at prayer in an old-fashioned church pew, not Gothic" (Reid 142).

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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