Hablot Knight Browne
Encyclopedia
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
, Charles Lever
Charles Lever
Charles James Lever was an Irish novelist.-Biography:Lever was born in Dublin, the second son of James Lever, an architect and builder, and was educated in private schools. His escapades at Trinity College, Dublin , where he took the degree in medicine in 1831, are drawn on for the plots of some...
and Harrison Ainsworth.
Biography
Of HuguenotHuguenot
The Huguenots were members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France during the 16th and 17th centuries. Since the 17th century, people who formerly would have been called Huguenots have instead simply been called French Protestants, a title suggested by their German co-religionists, the...
ancestry, Hablot Knight Browne was born in England, in Lambeth
Lambeth
Lambeth is a district of south London, England, and part of the London Borough of Lambeth. It is situated southeast of Charing Cross.-Toponymy:...
(near London) on Kennington Lane. He was the fourteenth of Catherine and William Loder Browne's fifteen children. According to Valerie Browne Lester, Phiz was in fact the illegitimate son of his eldest sister Kate and Captain Nicholas Hablot of Napoleon's Imperial Guard. There is some uncertainty regarding the exact date of birth. 12 July 1815 is the date given by Valerie Browne Lester, his great-great-granddaughter, and John Buchanan-Brown in his book Phiz!: illustrator of Dickens' world. Other possible dates are 11 June 1815 (Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition
Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition
The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition is a 29-volume reference work, an edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. It was developed during the encyclopaedia's transition from a British to an American publication. Some of its articles were written by the best-known scholars of the time...
) and 15 June 1815 (Dictionary of National Biography
Dictionary of National Biography
The Dictionary of National Biography is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published from 1885...
).
When he was 7 years old, his father William Browne abandoned his family, changed his name to Breton and sailed with embezzled funds to Philadelphia where he became known for his watercolour paintings. William Browne was then declared dead by his wife Catherine. Thomas Moxon, husband of William's sister Ann Loder Browne, helped to support the family, who were left badly off.
Browne was apprenticed to Finden
William Finden
William Finden was an English line engraver.He served his apprenticeship to one James Mitan, but appears to have owed far more to the influence of James Heath, whose works he privately and earnestly studied...
, an engraver
Engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...
, in whose studio he obtained his only artistic education. However, he was unsuited for engraving, and having during 1833 secured an important prize from the Society of Arts for a drawing of John Gilpin
John Gilpin
John Gilpin was a based on real-life character whose exploits became legendary and featured in a well-known comic ballad of 1782 by William Cowper entitled The Diverting History of John Gilpin...
, he abandoned engraving in the following year and began other artistic work, with the ultimate object of becoming a painter.
Artistic career
In the spring of 1836, he met Charles Dickens. It was at the time when the Dickens was looking for someone to illustrate PickwickThe Pickwick Papers
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club is the first novel by Charles Dickens. After the publication, the widow of the illustrator Robert Seymour claimed that the idea for the novel was originally her husband's; however, in his preface to the 1867 edition, Dickens strenuously denied any...
. Browne had been the illustrator of his little pamphlet Sunday under Three Heads. In the original edition of Pickwick, issued in shilling monthly parts from early in 1836 until the end of 1837, the first seven plates were drawn by Robert Seymour
Robert Seymour (illustrator)
Robert Seymour was a British illustrator. Seymour is known for his illustrations of the works of Charles Dickens and for his caricatures.-Early years:...
, who committed suicide in April 1836. The next two plates were by Robert William Buss
Robert William Buss
Robert William Buss was a Victorian artist, etcher and illustrator perhaps best known for his painting Dickens' Dream.-Early career:...
.
Browne and William Makepeace Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray was an English novelist of the 19th century. He was famous for his satirical works, particularly Vanity Fair, a panoramic portrait of English society.-Biography:...
visited the publishers' office with specimens of their work for Dickens's inspection. The novelist preferred Browne. Browne's first two etched
Etching
Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal...
plates for Pickwick were signed "Nemo," but the third was signed "Phiz," a pseudonym which was retained in future. When asked to explain why he chose this name he answered that the change from "Nemo" to "Phiz" was made to harmonize better with Dickens's "Boz."
Phiz developed the character Sam Weller graphically just as Seymour had developed Pickwick. Dickens and Phiz became good friends and in 1838 travelled together to Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
to see the schools of which Nicholas Nickleby became the hero: afterwards they made several journeys of this nature in company to facilitate the illustrator's work. Other Dickens characters illustrated by Phiz were Squeers, Micawber, Guppy, Major Bagstock, Mrs Gamp, Tom Pinch and David Copperfield.
Of the ten books by Dickens which Phiz illustrated, he is most known for David Copperfield
David Copperfield (novel)
The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery , commonly referred to as David Copperfield, is the eighth novel by Charles Dickens, first published as a novel in 1850. Like most of his works, it originally appeared in serial...
, Pickwick, Dombey and Son
Dombey and Son
Dombey and Son is a novel by the Victorian author Charles Dickens. It was first published in monthly parts between October 1846 and April 1848 with the full title Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son: Wholesale, Retail and for Exportation...
, Martin Chuzzlewit
Martin Chuzzlewit
The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit is a novel by Charles Dickens, considered the last of his picaresque novels. It was originally serialized between 1843-1844. Dickens himself proclaimed Martin Chuzzlewit to be his best work, but it was one of his least popular novels...
and Bleak House
Bleak House
Bleak House is the ninth novel by Charles Dickens, published in twenty monthly installments between March 1852 and September 1853. It is held to be one of Dickens's finest novels, containing one of the most vast, complex and engaging arrays of minor characters and sub-plots in his entire canon...
. Browne made several drawings for Punch in his early days and also towards the end of his life. He designed the wrapper which was used for eighteen months from January 1842. He also contributed to Punch's Pocket Books.
In addition to his work for Dickens, Phiz illustrated more than twenty of Lever's novels (among them Harry Lorrequer, Charles O'Malley, Jack Hinton and the Knight of Gwynne). He also illustrated Harrison Ainsworth's and Frank Smedley's novels. Mervyn Clitheroe by Ainsworth is one of the most accomplished of the artist's works. Browne was in continual employment by publishers until 1867, when he suffered an illness that caused a degree of paralysis. After recovering, he produced many woodcuts. In 1878 he was awarded an annuity by the Royal Academy
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
. His health gradually worsened until he died on 8 July 1882.
Most of Browne's work was etched on steel plates because these yielded a far larger edition than copper. Browne was annoyed at some of his etchings being transferred to stone by the publishers and printed as lithographic reproductions. Partly with the view to prevent this treatment of his work, he employed a machine to rule a series of lines over the plate in order to obtain what appeared to be a tint; when manipulated with acid this tint gave an effect somewhat resembling mezzotint
Mezzotint
Mezzotint is a printmaking process of the intaglio family, technically a drypoint method. It was the first tonal method to be used, enabling half-tones to be produced without using line- or dot-based techniques like hatching, cross-hatching or stipple...
, which at that time it was found practically impossible to transfer to stone.
Further reading
- John Forster, Life of Charles Dickens (London, 1871–1874)
- FG Kitton, Phiz: A Memoir (London, 1882)
- Valerie Browne Lester, "Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens" (London, 2004) ISBN 070117742X and ISBN 1844135349 (2006 edition)
- Phiz, and John Buchanan-Brown. 1978. Phiz! illustrator of Dickens' world. New York: C. Scribner's sons.
- MH Spielmano, The History of Punch (London, 1895).
- D Croal Thomson, Hablot Knight Browne, Phiz: Life and Letters (London, 1884)
- Charles Dickens and his Illustrators (London, 1899)
External links
- Hablot Knight Browne on The Victorian Web.
- "Phiz, Dickens and London" -- Valerie Browne Lester's lecture at Gresham College.
- "The man who made Dickens fizz"