File:Miss Wren fixes her idea (Oct., 1865).jpg

Miss Wren fixes her Idea by Marcus Stone. Wood engraving by Dalziel. 9.2 cm high x 14.6 cm wide, vignetted. First illustration for the eighteenth monthly number of Our Mutual Friend, Chapter Nine, "Two Places Vacated," in the fourth book, "A Turning." The Authentic edition, facing p. 638. Jenny has had her doubts about Riah's being what he seems — a decent, honest, caring individual — based on his affiliation with the usurious money-lending firm of Pubsey & Co., Saine Mary Axe. But sometimes in Dickens characters are what they seem to be, and Riah has exonerated himself by quitting Fledgeby's employ. Riah is, of course, the kind of father figure for whom Jenny has been yearning; and shortly, with the death of her biological father, "Mr. Dolls," she will acquire the father and friend she deserves. Sentiment and affiliation by choice, implies Dickens, are more important than mere biology in the formation of families — as we have already seen in the formation of the unconventional Peggotty family in David Copperfield. Quick-minded Jenny has finally sorted out who is actually Pubsey and Co., and has to repent of her misjudgement of Riah, a misjudgement of Jews in general made by so many of Dickens's readers. To Jenny, Riah is once again a fairy "Godmother" rather than the "Wolf" in her real-life fairy-tale, which is apparently a conflation of "Cinderella" and "Little Red Riding-hood."

However, the passage realised in this illustration occurs not in the Pubsey and Co. offices, but around Jenny's dressmaking table in her own apartments when, having buried her father, Jenny has another idea to "fix," namely making a doll clergyman for a dolls' wedding:

So, it came into my head while I was weeping at my poor boy's grave, that something in my way might be done with a clergyman.' [637]

Thus, in this Stone illustration Jenny points to a doll clergyman as Riah tries to understand exactly what "idea" she is attempting to "fix." Although her staff is still obvious enough, her deformity is not. (Scan and text by Philip V. Allingham)

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