Bleak House , Dickens's most daring experiment in the narration of a complex plot, challenges the reader to make connections--between the fashionable and the outcast, the beautiful and the ugly, the powerful and their victims. Nowhere in Dickens's later novels is his attack on an uncaring society more imaginatively embodied, and nowhere is the mixture of comedy and angry satire more deftly managed.
Hablot Browne (Phiz) provided all 40 illustrations, etched on steel, for Bleak House published in monthly parts Mar 1852 - Sep 1853. In order to help set the dark mood of the novel Browne incorporated a technique called 'dark plate' on ten of the illustrations. The dark plate technique involved using a ruling-machine (operated by an assistant) which cut a close-spaced criss-cross pattern of lines into the plate, thus creating an overall dark cast on the resulting print. The illustration depicting Toms-all-Alone's, the slum that is home to the crossing-sweeper, Jo, is perhaps the most striking example of the dark plate technique.
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Bleak House , Dickens's most daring experiment in the narration of a complex plot, challenges the reader to make connections--between the fashionable and the outcast, the beautiful and the ugly, the powerful and their victims. Nowhere in Dickens's later novels is his attack on an uncaring society more imaginatively embodied, and nowhere is the mixture of comedy and angry satire more deftly managed.
Hablot Browne (Phiz) provided all 40 illustrations, etched on steel, for Bleak House published in monthly parts Mar 1852 - Sep 1853. In order to help set the dark mood of the novel Browne incorporated a technique called 'dark plate' on ten of the illustrations. The dark plate technique involved using a ruling-machine (operated by an assistant) which cut a close-spaced criss-cross pattern of lines into the plate, thus creating an overall dark cast on the resulting print. The illustration depicting Toms-all-Alone's, the slum that is home to the crossing-sweeper, Jo, is perhaps the most striking example of the dark plate technique.
