Phiz

Hablot Knight Browne (10 July 1815 – 8 July 1882) was an English artist and illustrator. Well-known by his pen name, Phiz, he illustrated books by Charles Dickens, Charles Lever, and Harrison Ainsworth.

Of Huguenot ancestry, Hablot Knight Browne was born in England, in Lambeth (near London) on Kennington Lane. He was the fourteenth of Catherine and William Loder Browne's fifteen children. According to biographer, Valerie Browne Lester, Phiz was in fact the illegitimate son of his putative eldest sister Kate and Captain Nicholas Hablot of Napoleon's Imperial Guard. There is some uncertainty regarding the exact date of birth. 10 July 1815 is the date given by Valerie Browne Lester, his great-great-granddaughter. John Buchanan-Brown in his book Phiz!: Illustrator of Dickens' World says 12 July 1815. The date on his Christening record of 21 December 1815 at St Mary's Church, Lambeth, Surrey, England gives 11 June 1815, as does the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition and 15 June 1815 (Dictionary of National Biography). A copy of the program from his burial service, which is still owned by the Browne family, says he was born 10 July 1815.

When he was 7 years old, his father William Browne abandoned the family, changed his name to Breton and sailed with embezzled funds to Philadelphia where he became known for his watercolour paintings. William Browne was then declared dead by his wife Catherine. Thomas Moxon, husband of William's sister Ann Loder Browne, helped to support the family, who were left badly off.

Browne was apprenticed to William Finden, an engraver, in whose studio he obtained his only artistic education. However, he was unsuited for engraving, and having during 1833 secured an important prize from the Society of Arts for a drawing of John Gilpin, he abandoned engraving in the following year and began other artistic work, with the ultimate object of becoming a painter.

In the spring of 1836, he met Charles Dickens. It was at the time when Dickens was looking for someone to illustrate Pickwick. Browne had been the illustrator of his little pamphlet Sunday under Three Heads. In the original edition of Pickwick, issued in shilling monthly parts from early in 1836 until the end of 1837, the first seven plates were drawn by Robert Seymour, who committed suicide in April 1836. The next two plates were by Robert William Buss.

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