A Young Man... All Dirty and Shiny and Slimy

[A Young Man ... All Dirty and Shiny and Slimy]

Edward G. Dalziel

Wood engraving

Dickens's "A Young Man ... All Dirty and Shiny and Slimy," from "Wapping Workhouse," chapter three in The Uncommercial Traveller

The descriptive passage "Stood a creature remotely in the likeness of a young man, with a puffed, sallow face, and a figure all dirty and slimy, who may have been the youngest son of his filthy old father, Thames" (p. 9) is realized in this three-quarter-page woodblock illustration positioned three pages later than the passage in which the narrator encounters the navvy at the lock on Wapping Stairs on the Thames.

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham

[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]