Hablot Knight Browne worked as Dickens’s principal illustrator for more than 20 years, from the publication of The Pickwick Papers (1836-7) to A Tale of Two Cities (1859). He signed his first illustrations for Pickwick ‘N.E.M.O.’, but thereafter adopted the sobriquet ‘Phiz’, short for ‘physiognomy’, the popular pseudo-science of inferring character from facial features. ‘Phiz’, he decided, chimed better with Dickens’s ‘Boz’.
Phiz and Boz certainly did chime well together. Though Browne worked with many authors and publications, including Charles Lever, Anthony Trollope and Punch, he was and remains best known for his collaborations with Dickens. Author and illustrator worked closely on the novels. For each monthly instalment, Dickens would summarise the two scenes to be illustrated; Browne would then make preliminary drawings that Dickens would approve or emend; finally, the drawings were transferred to metal plates for etching and printing.
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