PRINTED FROM THE ORIGINAL WOODBLOCKS
ENGRAVED FOR "THE HOUSEHOLD EDITION"
THE MUSSON BOOK CO. LIMITED
LONDON ENGLAND TORONTO CANADA
Printed by Ballantyne & Co. Limited
Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, London
LIST OF WORKS AND ARTISTS
| [Title Design] | By Gordon Thomson | |||
| [Sketches by Boz] | 34 | Illustrations | by | Fred Barnard |
| [The Pickwick Papers] | 57 | " | " | Phiz |
| [Oliver Twist] | 28 | " | " | J. Mahoney |
| [Nicholas Nickleby] | 59 | " | " | Fred Barnard |
| [Master Humphrey's Clock and other Stories] | 9 | " | " | Fred Barnard |
| [The Old Curiosity Shop] | 39 | " | " | Charles Green |
| [Barnaby Rudge] | 46 | " | " | Fred Barnard |
| [American Notes] | 10 | " | " | A. B. Frost |
| [Martin Chuzzlewit] | 59 | " | " | Fred Barnard |
| [Christmas Books] | 28 | " | " | Fred Barnard |
| [Pictures from Italy] | 8 | " | " | Gordon Thomson |
| [Dombey and Son] | 62 | " | " | Fred Barnard |
| [David Copperfield] | 61 | " | " | Fred Barnard |
| [A Child's History of England] | 15 | " | " | J. McL. Ralston |
| [Bleak House] | 61 | " | " | Fred Barnard |
| [Hard Times] | 20 | " | " | H. French |
| [Little Dorrit] | 58 | " | " | J. Mahoney |
| [Reprinted Pieces] | 9 | " | " | E. G. Dalziel |
| [A Tale of Two Cities] | 25 | " | " | Fred Barnard |
| [Uncommercial Traveller] | 26 | " | " | E. G. Dalziel |
| [Great Expectations] | 30 | " | " | F. A. Frazer |
| [Our Mutual Friend] | 58 | " | " | J. Mahoney |
| [Christmas Stories] | 23 | " | " | E. G. Dalziel |
| [Edwin Drood] | 12 | " | " | Luke Fildes |
| [Life of Dickens] | 28 | " | " | Fred Barnard |
[INTRODUCTORY NOTE]
THERE is one question upon which the critics and lovers of Dickens seem never able to get into agreement, and that is the question of the original illustrations to his works. To the thorough-going enthusiast Phiz and Dickens seem inseparable, and no edition which does not contain the old, familiar grotesques of Hablot Browne's imagination, or, in the earlier volume, the equally abnormal lineaments portrayed by Cruikshank or Seymour, would be deemed worthy of a place upon his bookshelf. But a younger generation is growing up, for whom the time-honoured pictures have not the charm of long association, and among them it is common to hear the complaint that the natural humour and pathos of the author's best works are spoiled to modern fancy by the violent caricatures of the illustrator. "Let us abolish these pictures altogether," they say: "and illustrate the books with pretty conventionalities by more fashionable artists." At the opposite pole stands yet another group of critics—the "Superior People" who have made up their minds that Dickens himself was a caricaturist, and that therefore the early illustrations, even if they do a little emphasise his exaggerations, are only conceived in fitting harmony with a world of fancy which drowns itself in excesses of the grotesque. Among so many doctors, and all so emphatic, who shall decide? It is, at any rate, no easy task.