Hablot Knight Browne
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Hablot Knight Browne, pseudonym
Phiz (born June 15, 1815, Lambeth, near London—died July 8, 1882,
Brighton, East Sussex, Eng.). British artist, preeminent as an
interpreter and illustrator of Dickens’ characters.
Browne was early apprenticed to the
engraver William Finden, in whose studio his only artistic education
was obtained. At the age of 19 he abandoned engraving in favour of
other artistic work, and a meeting with Dickens two years later
determined the form which this would take. Robert Seymour, the
original illustrator of The Pickwick Papers, had just committed
suicide, and the serial publication of the book was in danger from
the lack of a capable successor. Browne applied for the post, and
the drawings that he submitted were preferred by Dickens to those of
a rival applicant—W.M. Thackeray. His pseudonym of “Phiz” was
adopted in order to harmonize with Dickens’ “Boz,” and it was by his
work for Dickens (especially in Pickwick, David Copperfield, Dombey
and Son, Martin Chuzzlewit, and Bleak House) that his reputation was
made. He also illustrated the best-known novels of Charles Lever and
Harrison Ainsworth in their original editions, and his work was in
constant demand by publishers until a stroke of paralysis, in 1867,
permanently injured his powers.
