Paul Johnson
Boz’s Buddy
Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens
By Valerie Brown Lester
Chatto & Windus 256pp £20 order from our bookshop
THIS IS A work of great industry and family pietas. Valerie Browne Lester is the great-great-granddaughter of Phiz (1815-1882), the celebrated Victorian illustrator whose real name was Hablot Knight Browne. Phiz emerged as the illustrator of The Pickwick Papers, when the original illustrator died after only two issues. The name Phiz was probably chosen to match the pen-name Boz, which Dickens used for his first book of sketches. Certainly the two became famous together.
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