The Subterranean Topography of Oliver Twist

The Subterranean Topography of Oliver Twist Ruth Richardson (bio) Introduction Oliver Twist was poised for publication in its first triple-decker book edition in November 1838, when John Forster wrote urgently to Dickens’s publisher Richard Bentley to get two of George Cruikshank’s illustrations pulled from the book’s final volume. The first was the image of Sikes attempting to destroy his dog. The animal, Forster said, looked like a “tail-less baboon” (Letters 1: 450–1). It still does – it was finally left in. But the second image (see Fig. 1) was captioned “Rose Maylie and Oliver.” In it, we look towards a marble Victorian mantelpiece with all its domestic knick-knacks and a roaring fire, a religious painting reflected in the tall pier-glass, and the portrait of Oliver’s mother in an alcove to one side. The mantel-clock is protected under a glass dome, flanked by two hyacinths cupped securely in their glasses, growing straight between supportive guide-sticks, an obvious visual metaphor for child-rearing. Young Oliver is portrayed at the heart of the Maylie family: between old Mrs. Maylie, her newly-wedded son and the fragrant Rose, all comfortably grouped round their happy hearth. The image has since become known as the “Fireside” plate. Forster strongly objected to it. He described it as “a Rowland Macasser frontispiece to a sixpenny book of forfeits” (Letters 1: 450–1). Rowland’s Macassar was an oily hair cream for men, advertised everywhere, including on the advertising pages of the inner cover of Bentley’s Miscellany, in which the monthly parts of Oliver Twist first appeared. Macassar was so ubiquitous that those ornamental cloths which get attached to train seat head-rests and to the backs of upholstered chairs are still known as “antimacassars.” Dickens had associated macassar and gushing sentimentality in his sketch on Watkins Tottle, and with aspirational fraud in “The Tuggses at Ramsgate.” I take Forster to mean that he thought the Fireside plate both hackneyed and suspect: oozing oil and false sentiment, and unworthy of Dickens’s book. The crisis over these illustrations brought Dickens home post-haste to [End Page 293] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. “Rose Maylie and Oliver” or the “Fireside” Plate. Courtesy Dan Calinescu, Boz & Friends Rare Books, Toronto. [End Page 294] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 2. “Rose Maylie and Oliver” or the “Church” Plate. Courtesy Dan Calinescu, Boz & Friends Rare Books, Toronto. [End Page 295] London from Liverpool. He wrote directly to George Cruikshank: “My dear Cruikshank, I returned suddenly to town yesterday afternoon to look at the latter pages of Oliver Twist before it was delivered to the booksellers, when I saw the majority of the plates in the last volume for the first time. With reference to the last one – Rose Maylie and Oliver. Without entering into the question of great haste or any other cause which may have led to its being what it is – I am quite sure there can be little difference of opinion between us with respect to the result – May I ask you whether you will object to designing this plate afresh and doing so at once in order that as few impressions as possible of the present one may go forth? I feel confident you know me too well to feel hurt by this enquiry, and with equal confidence in you I have lost no time in preferring it.” (Letters 1: 450–1) A strip torn from the bottom edge of Dickens’s copy of the letter may have recorded his suggestion for the new subject with which Cruikshank eventually responded. Cruikshank was not at all pleased to be asked to create a fresh illustration. He disagreed with Dickens’s estimate of his first effort, and dragged his heels in the production of the new image. The result has become known as the “Church” plate (Fig. 2). Cruikshank later described the subject as “without any interest”: “[…] there was not anything in the latter part of the manuscript that would suggest an illustration […] but to oblige Mr. Dickens I did my best to produce another etching, working hard day and night […] but when...

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