Dick Swiveller by J. Clayton Clarke ("Kyd") for the 1910 watercolour series: reproduced on John Player cigarette card no. 11: Ninety-two Characters from Dickens: The Old Curiosity Shop. 2 ½ inches high by 1 ¼ inches wide (6.3 cm high by 3.3 cm wide). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
DICK SWIVELLER (The Old Curiosity Shop)
Glorious Dick! Immortal, bacchanalian Richard, all hail! Though Fate sports with you as an October wind with a fallen leaf; though mocking Quilp fools you, and oily Brass cuts you suddenly adrift, do you not find a Marchioness in the end? — a Marchioness, and a snug cottage at Hampstead? Go to, then! May the wing of friendship never moult a feather! [Verso over Card No. 11]
Possible Source Text: The First Appearance of Dick Swiveller
‘And his mother died!’ cried the old man, passionately clasping his hands and looking upward; ‘and this is Heaven’s justice!’
The other stood lounging with his foot upon a chair, and regarded him with a contemptuous sneer. He was a young man of one-and-twenty or thereabouts; well made, and certainly handsome, though the expression of his face was far from prepossessing, having in common with his manner and even his dress, a dissipated, insolent air which repelled one.
‘Justice or no justice,’ said the young fellow, ‘here I am and here I shall stop till such time as I think fit to go, unless you send for assistance to put me out — which you won’t do, I know. I tell you again that I want to see my sister.’ [Chapter The Second, p. 80, in the 1840 edition]
Commentary: A Much More Likeable Dick
Our initial impression, based on his appearance in the text and the accompanying illustration, is hardly positive. Dick, fashionably dressed, sprawls rather than sits as his friend Fred Trent argues with his Grandfather in the curiosity shop. The languishing posture supports the reader's impression of Dick's feckless and dissolute nature. Surprisingly, there is no hint of these negative character traits in Kyd's portrait of a fashionable man about town; rather, this is the handsome youth who works for the Brasses and shows kindness to their much-put-upon servant-girl, whom Dick dubs "The Marchioness." Since the popular taste in "Characters from Dickens" as well as in "novels from Dickens" has changed so much over the past century, Dick Swiveller must come as a delightful surprise for modern readers taking up that textual monument to Victorian sentimentality, The Old Curiosity Shop, for the first time.
Principal Illustrated Editions of the Novel (1841-1924)
- The Old Curiosity Shop Illustrated: A Team Effort by "The Clock Works" (1841)
- Frontispieces to the three-volume edition of Dickens's The Old Curiosity Shop, illustrated by Felix Octavius Carr Darley in the James G. Gregory (New York) Household Edition (1861-71)
- The Old Curiosity Shop by Sol Eytinge, Jr., in the Boston Diamond Edition (1867)
- The Old Curiosity Shop by Thomas Worth in the American Household Edition (1874)
- The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Green in the British Household Edition (1876)
- The Old Curiosity Shop by W. H. C. Groome in the Collins' Clear-Type Press Edition (1900)
- The Old Curiosity Shop by Harry Furniss in the British Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910)
- Harold Copping (2 plates selected)
Parallel Portraits of Dick by Other Illustrators
Left: Phiz's initial representation of Dick: Mr. Swiveller Seeks to Gain Attention (16 May 1840). Centre: Harry Furniss's study of the interview of Fred, his grandfather, and the dissolute law clerk Dick Siveller, with the emphasis on the figures rather than on the cluttered backdrop, in which Furniss has not placed the narrator, Master Humphrey: Fred Trent visits his Grandfather (1910). Right: Charles Green, a member of the team of 1860s illustrators who worked on the Household Edition, illustrated the same scene in a markedly realistic manner in The old man sat himself down in a chair, and, with folded hands, looked sometimes at his grandson and sometimes at his strange companion (1876, Ch. 2).
Scanned images and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography of Illustrated Editions of The Old Curiosity Shop
Dickens, Charles. The Old Curiosity Shop in Master Humphrey's Clock. Illustrated by Phiz, George Cattermole, Samuel Williams, and Daniel Maclise. 3 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1841; rpt., Bradbury and Evans, 1849.
_____. The Old Curiosity Shop. Frontispieces by Felix Octavius Carr Darley and Sir John Gilbert. The Household Edition. 55 vols. New York: Sheldon & Co., 1863. 4 vols.
_____. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. 14 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. XII.
_____. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by Thomas Worth. The Household Edition. New York: Harper & Bros., 1872. I.
_____. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by Charles Green. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1876. XII.
_____. The Old Curiosity Shop. With nineteen steel-plate illustrations from original wood-engravings by Phiz and George Cattermole. 2 vols. "New Illustrated Library Edition" of the Works of Charles Dickens. New York: Hurd and Houghton; Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1876. Vols. VI and VII.
_____. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by William H. C. Groome. The Collins' Clear-Type Edition. Glasgow & London: Collins, 1900.
_____. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book, 1910. V.
Hammerton, J. A. "XIII. The Old Curiosity Shop." The Dickens Picture-Book. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book, 1910. XVII, 170-211.
Vann, J. Don. "The Old Curiosity Shop in Master Humphrey's Clock, 25 April 1840-6 February 1841." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: MLA, 1985. 64-65.
Created 6January 2015
Last updated 8 July 2025