File:The Garden on the Roof.jpg

The Garden on the Roof Marcus Stone

Wood engraving by Dalziel

14.2 cm high x 9.4 cm wide

Dickens's Our Mutual Friend, Book Two ("Birds of a Feather"), Chapter Five, "Mercury Prompting" [This part of the novel originally appeared in periodical form in Part 7, November 1864.]

Quite another side of Fascination Fledgeby is revealed in the November, 1864, part (Chapter 5 of the second book) when the youth visits his money-lending business, Pubsey & Co., at St. Mary Axe. In the scene by Stone, the dignified Jew, Riah, Fledgeby's front-man, conducts his employer onto the roof of the building, where Jenny Wren and Lizzie Hexam are reading. The illustration brings out that familiar Dickens theme, the romantic side of everyday things. In the midst of a wilderness of blackened, smoke-spewing chimneys we encounter the contemplative oasis of Riah's roof-garden, appropriately occupied by the two young, lower-class women who make "book-learning" their holiday from workaday drudgery. The picture underscores the mutual affection of Lizzie and Jenny, and connects these characters to Riah and thence to Fledgeby, whose connection to Georgiana Podsnap and the Lammles bridges the gulf between the working and the upper classes. Stone has foiled the dozen chimneys and the sooty building behind Riah with the overgrown chimney-pots and greenery behind the picnicking young women. In the foreground is Jenny Wren's oversized bonnet, implying that, for the moment at least, she has been able to shed her role as pseudo-adult wage-earner and head of family to enjoy the liberation of an engrossing book. Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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