Royal Doulton Figurine Fat Boy HN2096

The Fat Boy (HN2096) was designed by Leslie Harradine and issued by Royal Doulton from 1952 to 1967, standing 7.25 inches tall as part of the Dickens series, Style Three. Harradine modelled the character in earthenware rather than bone china — a deliberate choice that gives the Dickens figures a robustness and warmth entirely suited to their subject matter — with Joe rendered in a blue shirt, cream trousers and yellow scarf, his posture and expression capturing the character's legendary combination of appetite and somnolence in a single glance.

Joe, better known as the Fat Boy, is one of Dickens' most immediately recognisable comic creations, the perpetually drowsy and perpetually hungry young manservant of Mr. Wardle in The Pickwick Papers. His line — "I wants to make your flesh creep" — has passed into the language, and his physical presence in the novel is so vividly drawn that Harradine had one of the richest character portraits in English literature to work from. The result is a figure that needs no introduction to any Dickens reader, and rewards close looking even to those who come to it fresh.

Royal Doulton's Dickens series is one of the most enduringly popular character figure programmes in the HN range, appealing equally to dedicated Royal Doulton collectors and to the very large international audience for Dickens memorabilia and Victorian literary collectibles. Harradine's fifteen-year run figures are now solidly vintage, and the Style Three earthenware pieces consistently hold their market.