This post is con­tributed by Gerry Mooney, a (now re­tired) com­mer­ci­al art­ist and il­lustrator from New York. Mooney is also a longtime Char­les Di­ckens fan and he has em­bar­ked on a pro­ject to il­lustrate Di­ckens’s great Bleak House. Mooney can be found on­line https://ger­rymooneyil­lustratingdic­kens.com/

Char­les Di­ckens Li­nocut Portrait Gerry Mooney, 2021.

The sprawl­ing Bleak House is sin­gular among Di­ckens’s works. As an art­ist, I find the ap­pe­al is lar­ge­ly visu­al, as Di­ckens ef­fortless­ly con­structs charact­ers, im­ages and scenarios that beg to be im­agined into phys­ical rea­l­ity.

I first read it de­cades ago and never stop­ped think­ing about it. I knew that some­day I would at­tempt to il­lustrate it, but my work as a com­mer­ci­al art­ist in the high-pressure New York mar­ket made it an easy pro­ject to put off. Once I set pen­cil to paper, there would be no turn­ing back, and now that I’m re­tired, I have no more ex­cuses.

I’ve al­ways liked li­noleum cutt­ing as an art medium since I lear­ned it in school, but I’ve only wor­ked in it oc­casional­ly. It seemed like it would be a good “look” for il­lustrat­ing Di­ckens. It mimics the feel of wood­cut il­lustra­tion, and though it is a de­mand­ing medium, it’s more for­giv­ing and eas­i­er to work with than wood. It also lends it­self to heavy blacks, which I felt would suit the materi­al.

While I star­ted sketch­ing some il­lustra­tion ideas, I also wan­ted to learn about the origin­al art­ists’ con­tribu­tions to the first (and sub­sequent) edi­tions of BH and oth­ers, and so I un­der­took to learn as much as pos­sible on the sub­jects of Phiz’s il­lustra­tion care­er and Di­ckens’s work­ing re­lationship with his art­ists.

I find Hab­lot K. Brow­ne’s Bleak House il­lustra­tions some­what lacklust­er, and ap­parent­ly I’m not alone in this. Steig calls the Bleak House il­lustra­tions “far more un­ev­en” than ear­li­er novels, and calls the comic plates “weak, even slop­py” (131). Leavis finds Brow­ne’s work here “dis­ap­point­ing” (359-360). Brow­ne’s other works are much more li­ve­ly and en­gag­ing and show an art­ist fully in­ves­ted in the creative pro­cess.

Most of the charact­er il­lustra­tions for Bleak House are de­sig­ned in a pro­saic man­n­er, with peo­ple ar­ranged in front of a wall, ges­tur­ing. I won­d­er if Di­ckens’s theatr­ical ten­den­cies were driv­ing the car here, as if the charact­ers are mere­ly on a stage, in­stead of in the world. The re­peated motif of Esth­er Sum­merson’s back tur­ned to the view­er is curi­ous. As Steig says in Di­ckens and Phiz (1978), this was to re­in­force her re­semblan­ce to Lady De­dlock, who also ap­pears in sever­al plates with her face hidd­en and in a similar shawl and bon­net (148). When Esther’s face is fin­al­ly seen, howev­er, she is not charac­terized in any in­terest­ing way.

The well-known “dark plates” are an­oth­er story. This is a term for ten of the forty il­lustra­tions that are created with a more labor-intensive and de­tailed en­grav­ing tech­nique that al­lowed for sub­tle shades of gray. Their somb­er tone gives them more depth, es­pecial­ly due to the ab­s­ence of any car­toonish charact­ers or busy pen-work. In contra­st to the charact­er il­lustra­tions, al­most none are li­mited to a stage-like sett­ing. The dark plates are no long­er on the stage, but in the world, mak­ing them per­haps more ap­peal­ing to the modern eye.

Tom All Alone’s. Phiz (Hab­lot K. Brow­ne), April 1853.

The Lone­ly Figure. Phiz (Hab­lot K. Brow­ne), August 1853.

Two of the most striking of the dark plates: Tom All Alone’s, and The Lonely Figure. While all the Bleak House illustrations are steel engravings, the dark plates use a more complicated engraving process, which gives them the appearance of wash drawings, rather than pen and ink. All the dark plates are in the second half of the story, paralleling the darker tone of that section of the novel.

Hav­ing been raised on TV and Mar­vel Com­ics, I saw a dif­ferent visu­al approach pos­sible for the book as a whole. For one thing, from an il­lustrator’s point of view, I looked at it primari­ly as a haun­ted house story, and if En­gland is the house and Chan­ce­ry is the ghost, maybe it is. This gave me a jump­ing off point for how scenes were staged, what in­cidents were key to il­lustrate, and how charact­ers rea­cted to plot turns and to each other. I also wan­ted to “charac­ter­ize” the charact­ers the way I saw them, which of co­ur­se is much dif­ferent than Brow­ne’s con­cepts.

The old man of the name of Tul­kinghorn. Phiz (Hab­lot K. Brow­ne), Janua­ry 1853.

I think Tulkinghorn and what he represents are short-changed here, showing him merely walking into a room, somewhat subserviently. Likewise, Lady Dedlock is not looking good either, and though the rendering of her face may just be a problem with this print, her figure is under-realized and without personality.

Mr. Tul­kinghorn and Lady De­dlock. Gerry Mooney, 2021.

I instead chose the moment in the story when Tulkinghorn wields his greatest power and Lady Dedlock is at her weakest. This imbalance belies the symmetrical design. Tulkinghorn, cinched and girded to the chin, stands behind a mountain of legal documents, the desk, and a heavy chair. Lady Dedlock, seated, passive, throat exposed, ready to write what he dictates, is entirely stripped of agency. The centered lamp tells us that in this scene, there are no shades of gray, only black and white. “They look at each other, like two pictures” (Bleak House, ch. 41) is the phrase that cements this image.

The Lord Chan­cellor Co­p­ies from Mem­o­ry. Phiz (Hab­lot K. Brow­ne), April 1852.

First I should say that this image of Browne’s is really exquisite. I especially like the detail of the environment and the beautifully handled lights and darks. But much like the above image of Tulkinghorn, I feel like this rendering of Krook is too “nice.”

Mr. Krook. Gerry Mooney, 2021.

There’s an implied menace to this character, and the way we meet him, that needed to be given more emphasis. Flinging open the door and thrusting his lantern in the reader’s face was the image that I felt defined him best.

I began this pro­ject im­agin­ing a set of full-page il­lustra­tions, but when I had sever­al com­pleted, and I began lay­ing out the book it­self, I made a startl­ing dis­cove­ry: as a rea­d­er I wasn’t that in­teres­ted in full page im­ages. What my eye as a rea­d­er wan­ted to see was small­er vig­nettes tuc­ked into the text. This rea­liza­tion chan­ged the shape of the pro­ject.

As I was work­ing out wheth­er to plan this as a print book or an e-book, I dis­covered quick­ly that these are two com­plete­ly dif­ferent crea­tures. The main dif­fer­ences are the numb­er of words per page, and that an e-book has no two-page spreads but is en­tire­ly de­pen­dent on the single page for­mat. This being the case, full-page im­ages are not par­ticular­ly use­ful. So, the plan for small­er il­lustra­tions works well, but an e-book needs more il­lustra­tions. I feel that if I want to call this an “il­lustrated novel,” there should be a pic­ture at least every ten pages or so, but this is an en­tire­ly sub­jec­tive de­cis­ion on my part.

I like the idea of doing im­ages that are sug­gested by the text, even if they aren’t scenes with charact­ers. This works well for the small­er vignette-style il­lustra­tion, and it frees me to im­agine ideas that cap­ture the feel of the story with metap­hor, at the same time in­volv­ing less meticul­ous re­search.

Miss Flite’s Birds. Gerry Mooney, 2021.

This is pure graphic design and has proved very popular. The negative treatment was a simple creative decision because of how cutting linoleum works, which in a nutshell is that it’s easier to make a white line than it is a black line. It also gives this simple line drawing more visual weight.

Esther’s Dolly. Gerry Mooney, 2021.

When Esther begins her narration, and talks about her little Dolly, I felt that the doll was a better image for Esther than Esther herself. The doll’s placement represents Esther: metaphorically propped up in an elegant armchair, but against a brick wall.

Moun­tain of Docu­ments. Gerry Mooney, 2021.

When the human destruction wrought by Chancery is described, the image of an infinite stack of legal documents, with headstones scattered at its base, suggested itself.

I don’t know yet what form the final book will take. An e-book will need more il­lustra­tions, but a print book will be more com­plicated to pro­duce and mar­ket. I’m cur­rent­ly work­ing on a “pilot pro­ject” e-book, con­sist­ing of the first seven chapt­ers of Bleak House fully il­lustrated, to serve as a call­ing card and ex­am­ple of what the final book, wheth­er electronic or print, will ul­timate­ly look like. In the mean­time, I con­tinue to create more im­ages. The in­spira­tion from this book is bot­tomless.

Works Cited and Con­sul­ted:

Brow­ne, Hab­lot K. The Lone­ly Figure. August 1853. Image scan by Geor­ge P. Lan­dow, The Vic­torian Web, https://vic­torian­web.org/art/il­lustration/phiz/bleak­house/35.html

—. The Lord Chan­cellor Co­p­ies from Mem­o­ry. April 1852. Image scan by Geor­ge P. Lan­dow, The Vic­torian Web, https://vic­torian­web.org/art/il­lustration/phiz/bleak­house/4.html

—. The old man of the name of Tul­kinghorn. Janua­ry 1853. Image scan by Geor­ge P. Lan­dow, The Vic­torian Web, https://vic­torian­web.org/art/il­lustration/phiz/bleak­house/22.html

—. Tom All Alone’s. April 1853. Image scan by Geor­ge P. Lan­dow, The Vic­torian Web, https://vic­torian­web.org/art/il­lustration/phiz/bleak­house/29.html

Di­ckens, Char­les. Bleak House. Pro­ject Guten­berg, Feb­rua­ry 21, 2012, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1023/1023-h/1023-h.htm.

Far­rar, Aile­en. “Char­les Di­ckens and Hab­lot K. Brow­ne: cross-narrative crea­tion and col­labora­tion in Bleak House.” Vic­torians: A Journ­al of Cul­ture and Lit­era­ture, no. 122, fall 2012, pp. 36+. Gale Lit­era­ture Re­sour­ce Cent­er, li­nk.gale.­com/apps/doc­/A316458785/LitRC?u=anon~2f2164c9&sid=goog­leScholar&xid=7f48f178. Ac­cessed 17 April 2022.

Lan­dow, Geor­ge P. and Philip V. Al­lingham. “The Norm­al Print­ing Pro­cess: Steel Plate En­grav­ings and Dark Plates,” The Vic­torian Web, https://vic­torian­web.org/art/il­lustration/phiz/bleak­house/25.html. Ac­cessed 17 April 2022.

Leavis, F.R. and Q.D. Leavis, Di­ckens the Novel­ist. Pantheon, 1970.

Mooney, Gerry. Char­les Di­ckens Li­nocut Portrait. 2021. Gerry Mooney Il­lustrat­ing Di­ckens, https://ger­rymooneyil­lustratingdic­kens.com/

—. Esther’s Dolly. 2021. Gerry Mooney Il­lustrat­ing Di­ckens, https://ger­rymooneyil­lustratingdic­kens.com/

—. Miss Flite’s Birds. 2021. Gerry Mooney Il­lustrat­ing Di­ckens, https://ger­rymooneyil­lustratingdic­kens.com/

—. Moun­tain of Docu­ments. 2021. Gerry Mooney Il­lustrat­ing Di­ckens, https://ger­rymooneyil­lustratingdic­kens.com/

—. Mr. Krook. 2021. Gerry Mooney Il­lustrat­ing Di­ckens, https://ger­rymooneyil­lustratingdic­kens.com/

—. Mr. Tul­kinghorn and Lady De­dlock. 2021. Gerry Mooney Il­lustrat­ing Di­ckens, https://ger­rymooneyil­lustratingdic­kens.com/

Per­due, David A. “Learn about the origin­al il­lustra­tions for Di­ckens’ works,” The Char­les Di­ckens Page, https://www.charlesdickenspage.com/charles-dickens-illustrations.html#phiz. Ac­cessed 17 April 2022.

Steig, Mic­hael. Di­ckens and Phiz. In­diana Uni­vers­ity Press, 1978.