Learning to draw for the press
Browne was born in London in 1815 and trained in engraving. In 1836 he took over the illustrations for The Pickwick Papers while it was appearing in parts. The name Phiz made a counterpart to Dickens’s signature Boz. The job grew into a collaboration lasting more than twenty years and extending to David Copperfield, Bleak House and other novels.
Etching required Browne to translate a crowd, a gesture or a joke into marks small enough for a printed plate. He also worked for Charles Lever and other novelists. His professional career extended well beyond Dickens, and the plates themselves could acquire new audiences after their original commissions were complete.
Pictures with a previous life
Lionel A. Weatherly’s preface to The Supernatural? names Shooting a Ghost and Witchery at Woodstock as pictures by Phiz originally published in Chronicles of Crime. Weatherly thanked the publishers for their use. Browne had died in 1882; he never illustrated the book as a new commission. Other drawings in the volume carry a separate credit to T. C. Nunn, and its discussion of stage magic is by John Nevil Maskelyne.
