Hablot Knight Browne

Hablot Knight Browne , pseud. Phiz, 1815-82, English illustrator. At 21 he was chosen by Charles Dickens to illustrate Pickwick Papers. His success was immediate, and in due course he illustrated many of Dickens's novels as well as works of Harrison Ainsworth and Charles Lever. Browne also contributed popular cartoons to Punch and painted numerous watercolors and several oils.

Bibliography: See biography by V. B. Lester (new ed. 2006).

Browne, Hablot Knight (1815–82), under the pseudonym ‘Phiz’, illustrated some of the works of Dickens, Surtees, Smedley, etc.

Browne, Hablot Knight ( ‘Phiz’) (b Kennington, Surrey [now in London], 12 July 1815; d Hove, Sussex, 8 July 1882). English book illustrator (mainly in etching) and painter. He is chiefly remembered as the original illustrator of eight of Charles Dickens's novels, beginning with Pickwick Papers (1837), on which he replaced Robert Seymour (1798–1836), who had committed suicide, and ending with A Tale of Two Cities (1859). Brown made these illustrations under the pseudonym ‘Phiz’ (suggesting a depicter of physiognomies), which he adopted to harmonize with Dickens's nickname of ‘Boz’. He illustrated the works of several other novelists, including Anthony Trollope (Can You Forgive Her?, 1864), and he also painted numerous watercolours and some oils. In 1867 he was partially paralysed and thereafter he worked less.