Mokeanna; or, The White Witness (1863)

                     

‘…The Chapeau Blanc, rooted to the spot, follows the Mokeanna…’

by John Adcock

The origins of Mokeanna; or, The White Witness. A Tale of the Times, form an interesting story. The serial began in Punch on February 21, 1863. That year Francis Cowley Burnand – later Sir Francis – ‘frequently saw Reynolds’s Miscellany’ on the newsstands and ‘much did I admire the dashing pictures by that master of his craft John Gilbert…’

[2] as visualised by John Gilbert, Punch, 21 February, 1863.

Burnand was mistaken; Frederick Gilbert supplied the illustrations to Reynolds’s; his brother John Gilbert supplied them to the London Journal. Burnand then began writing a parody in the penny serial style and approached proprietor Mr. M’Lean (Burnand’s spelling) who bought jokes from him on occasion, at his looking-glass shop in Fleet Street, downstairs from the FUN office, and began to read to him. But ‘He never chuckled; he rubbed his hands and slightly coughed, that was all.’

[3] as visualised by George du Maurier, Punch, 28 February, 1863.

Burnand then read the manuscript to his friend Fred. Collins Wilson who said ‘Bravo! We’ll have it illustrated! I’ll get the artists to burlesque themselves! Gilbert will do it! And I’ll get Jack Millais! And Hablot K. Browne! It’s first rate!’ Wilson’s connections got Burnand a deal with Punch.

Each installment was ‘Dramatically divided into Parts, by the Author…’ And when Mokeanna started appearing on February 21, 1863, ‘It created a sensation.’

In the first place, so well had Mark Lemon kept the secret, that the senior partner, Mr. Bradbury, who, having been invalided for some little time, had been unable to attend at the office, on receiving his early copy of Punch on the Sunday previous to its date of issue, was utterly horrified, on opening it, to see, as he thought, the first page of the London Journal (or of Reynolds, for I forget which it was) appearing as the first page of Punch! The error was just possible, as the London Journal (or Reynolds) was at that time printed by Messrs. Bradbury and Evans.    

[4] as visualised by Charles Keene, Punch, 14 March, 1863.

Bradbury considered it risky business but by the second number they knew they had made a hit with the public. Burnand said W.M. Thackeray told him that ‘he wished he had written it.’ Mokeanna (no doubt from ‘mockery’) was illustrated by John Gilbert, Hablot K. Browne, Charles Keene, George du Maurier and John Everett Millais. Mokeanna, by the way, was the name of the mule — shades of Black Bess!

[5] as visualised by John Everett Millais, Punch, 21 March, 1863.

Burnand wrote tons of stage burlesques with titles like Faust and Loose and Sir Dagobert and the Dragon; or How to run Through the Scales and The Frightful Hair; or, Who Shot the Dog? He would rise to the editor’s chair at Punch and crown his career by receiving a knighthood. One of his most famous books was The New History of Sanford and Merton (subtitled: Being a True Account of the Adventures of “Masters Tommy and Harry,” with their Beloved Tutor “Mr. Barlow”) which boasted 77 illustrations by Linley Sambourne.

[6] Some of Punch’s editors: Mark Lemon, Shirley Brooks, Tom Taylor and Francis Cowley Burnand.

The 1873 book version of Mokeanna can be read online HERE.

[7] Our Boys’ Novelist, Harry Furniss did the pictures, Punch, 11 March, 1882.

Punch tried something similar (under editor Burnand) with the serial Our Boys’ Novelist, illustrated by Harry Furniss and starting March 11, 1882. The serial parodied the boys’ periodicals of Edwin J. Brett and George Emmett. The heroine ‘Cachuca’ is named after ‘an uninhibited dance craze of the 1840s, something like the Lambada crossed with a Cancan.’ Mike Saavedra notes of the spoof advertising pages that

The ‘advertisements’ for ‘Bamboozelum’ sound suspiciously like the old bawdy ballad of ‘Kafoozalem, Kafuzalem, the Harlot of Jerusalem, Prostitute of Ill-Repute and daughter of the Baa-Baa.’ Oscar Brand recorded it back in the 1950s.

♦ Francis Burnand’s Records and Reminiscences (1903), in 2 volumes.

[8] 11 March, 1882.

[9] 25 March, 1882.

[10] 25 March, 1882.

[11] 3 June, 1882.

[12]  3 June, 1882.

[13] Spoof advertising page. ‘The Way We Advertise Now,’ in Punch, 12 November, 1881.

[14] Spoof advertising page. ‘Our Recreations; or, How We Advertise Now,’ in Punch, 28 January, 1882.

[15] ‘Man is but a worm,’ illustration by Linley Sambourne, in Punch’s Almanack for 1882, published 6 December, 1881.

•¡•

Thanks to E.M. Sanchez-Saavedra.

A Great Punch Artist: Charles Keene

“Character, for him, had always beauty. He found it in what are usually called vulgar types, the coster and the cabby, the policeman and the waiter, the slavey, and above all, the drunken man – just as Rembrandt found it in the Jews of Amsterdam, Velasquez in the dwarfs of the Spanish court, Hals in the jester and the fishwife.” – England’s Three Greatest Artist-Humorists since Hogarth, Brush and Pencil, Vol. 14, No. 4, July 1904.

The Graphic 1891

Charles Samuel Keene (1823-1891) was born at Hornsey, London and worked in the office of his father, a solicitor at Furnivall’s Inn. He was mostly self-taught except for training received at a Life School in Clipstone Street, Fitzroy Square.

He abandoned law in 1840 for an apprenticeship with Whymper Bros., engravers of woodblock illustrated books, where he did the illustrations for ‘Robinson Crusoe’. In 1851 he had his first signed drawing in Punch and contributed to The Illustrated London News and Once a Week. Keene began as an imitator of John Leech. He kept a studio on Baker Street, upstairs from the premises kept by celebrity photographers’ Elliott & Fry.

George du Maurier recalled the bohemian life the Punch artists led in one of his lectures on comic art.  “With all my admiration for Leech it was at the feet of Charles Keene that I found myself sitting. We were much together in those days, talking endless shop, taking long walks, riding side-by-side on the knife-boards of omnibuses, dining at cheap restaurants, making music at each other’s studios.”

Charles Keene did not write his own jokes; they were supplied by Joseph Crawhall the elder and Archibald Chasemore (“Our Lunatic Contributor” of Judy). He won a Gold medal at the Paris Exhibition in 1889. His last drawing for Punch, ‘Arry of the Boulevards’, appeared on August 15, 1890. Keene never married, and died at his sister’s residence in Hammersmith on January 10, 1891.

Last Punch drawing, August 15, 1890

Victorian Speech Bubbles

Speech Bubbles pop up occasionally in Victorian cartoons, but seldom do you find a whole comic page with balloons. Charles Samuel Keene drew this eye-popper “Our American Cousin in Europe” for Punch, Vol. 68, included in Punch’s Almanack for 1875. Keene is obviously trying to ape an American accent – badly. 
Below is a transcription of the text, as near as I can make it out. Makes you wonder if Victorians, who prided themselves on good handwriting, had much of a conception of printing by hand.

1 Some of our Gals’ Luggages!

2 Drop me for the Alps and back!

3 Your tailors are pretty good Britisher, but we beat all creation in Shirts! & our Bosoms are Soo-perb!

4 Guess you must v’ ped a powerful heap for that Soo-perior Back Switch Nip!

5 There’s a general look o’ disrepair about these olde countries Stranger, that we ain’t used to in New York!

6 Knew where you came from directly Britisher! You speak ‘American’ with such a strong English twang!

7 Garçon! Comment pensey vous q’un gentilhomme peut manger da petits pois avec tel couteau comme ça?!

8a  My dear Cassandra hadn’t you better go to bed?
8b  What, atop o’ that tea Ma?! Wouldn’t sleep a wink!

9 Saw the Father o’ my Country in Wax at Mad. Tussaud’s!

10 And I’ve got a Carpetbag full o’ curiosities! a nose of a statue from Pompeii and some Mosaics out o’ the Pavement of St. Marks — 
I whipped out my knife to get a slice o’ your Coronation chair — 
but I had to leave! — I shall try again if I go home your way, 
Good bye John!

George Cruikshank strip above, from The Comic Almanack For 1849, Second Series, 1844-1853. Folding plate from a reprint by Chatto & Windus, 1912. Whereas the Keene bubble comic was a wood-engraving, Cruikshank’s The Preparatory School was steel engraved.

My Sketch Book, 1834 

My Sketch Book, 1834

Passages in the Life of a Volunteer

Passages in the Life of a Volunteer,

from Punch Vol. 44, 1863. 

Probably Charles Keene.

Cornet Saunter's Experiences

 of Musketry Drill

Punch, 1866,

Charles Keene

A Perilous Journey by Water 

Punch, 1866,

Unknown artist

Punch's Almanack Comics (1881-1883)

Five comic pages from Punch's Almanack. The comic strip at top is by George du Maurier. The second strip is signed by Joseph Swain (head of the engraving department after Ebenezer Landells) and Charles Keene. Followed by Harry Furniss, A. C. Corbould, and Randolph Caldecott, again engraved by Swain.

Continue to George du Maurier's Punch comic strips of 1869 HERE