Nancy

Charles Pears

1912

11.3 x 8.8 cm framed

Third illustration for The Adventures of Oliver Twist in Oliver Twist, Centenary Edition (1912), facing p. 256.

In contrast to Dickens's original illustrator, George Cruikshank, who depicts Nancy as an uncouth, aggressive woman of the streets and Sikes's willing companion in the gang's re-capture of Oliver, Charles Pears, like other later illustrators, makes her a conscience-stricken victim of Sikes's brutality. [continued below]

[Click on illustration to enlarge it.]

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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