So much for the suppressed portrait. Now let us take up our first edition of Pickwick, and say what has to be said about the much-discussed Buss plates and their substitutes.
The suppressed portrait of Charles Dickens
Pickwick, as we all know, was first published in parts, and only one number had appeared when {29} Robert Seymour, its illustrator, died by his own hand. Messrs. Chapman and Hall, the publishers, were at their wits’ end to get the new number illustrated in time for publication. Jackson, the well-known wood-engraver, who was at the time working for them, proposed for the task R. W. Buss, a “gentleman already well known to the public as a very humorous and talented artist.” The publishers gladly adopted the suggestion, and the appointment was made.
All this we find very fully set out in Mr. Percy Fitzgerald’s History of Pickwick, to which I would refer the reader who is anxious to acquaint himself with details of the transaction. The Buss etchings, which we here reproduce, had for their subjects “The Cricket Match” and “Tupman and Rachel,” and are to be found respectively opposite pp. 69 and 74 of the earliest issues of the first edition of the immortal romance. They were, in the words of the artist himself, “abominably bad,” and he was immediately superseded as illustrator by H. K. Browne, who was destined to be inseparably connected with the novelist’s work for so long a period. {30}
This episode has been so often dwelt upon, and so exhaustively dealt with, that I shall not do much more than point out how those who have written on the subject have altogether missed what is perhaps the most important link in the whole chain of circumstances. So put to it, as I have said, were the publishers to get the new number out in time lest an expectant public should be disappointed, that they were forced to fix upon Seymour’s substitute without consulting Dickens. This was really the whole crux of the situation. The author only recognised the failure of the plates. He knew nothing of the difficulties under which Buss had laboured, and so naturally made no allowances, and knew of no reason why subsequent ones should be better. The plates unquestionably were poor, but we find from Mr. Buss’s own private MS., to which, by his son’s kindness, I have had access, that this was not by any means mainly the fault of the artist. He had previously had no experience in etching, and only undertook the work after much pressure, to accommodate the publishers. To quote from his own account: {31}
The “Pickwick” suppressed plate: “The Cricket Match.”(By R. W. Buss)
At Seymour’s death, Hall engaged me to illustrate Charles Dickens’s Pickwick. I commenced practice, and worked hard, I may say day and night, for at least a month on etching, and I furnished the illustrations for Pickwick. Without any reason assigned, Hall broke his engagement with me, in a manner at once unjust and unhandsome.
As a matter of fact, the plates, as they appeared, were not etched by Buss at all, but by a professional etcher after his designs. And it is curious to note that each of the plates is, notwithstanding, inscribed, “Drawn & Etch’d by R. W. Buss.”