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frontispiece and title page
The New York Public Library, Berg Collection of
English and American Literature

Group portrait of Charles Dickens, his wife, Catherine (center), and her younger sister Georgina, engraved after the 1843 drawing by Daniel Maclise.

In his Life of Charles Dickens, John Forster wrote admiringly of Maclise's original drawing, the "slight unstudied outline in pencil" upon which this engraving is based: "The likenesses of all are excellent; nothing ever done of Dickens himself has conveyed more vividly his look and bearing at this yet youthful time. He is in his most pleasing aspect; flattered, if you will; but nothing that is known to me gives a general impression so life-like and true of the then frank, eager, handsome face."

The remarque at lower right is a portrait of Mary Hogarth, after a painting by Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz").