"Lashing himself up to an extravagant pitch of fury, Newman Noggs jerked himself about the room with the most eccentric motion ever beheld in a human being" — Chap. XXXi. Fred Barnard's twenty-ninth illustration for "Nicholas Nickleby" (1875)

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Lashing himself up to an extravagant pitch of fury, Newman Noggs jerked himself about the room with the most eccentric motion ever beheld in a human being — Chap. XXXi, p. 205, from the Household Edition of Charles Dickens's The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, illustrated by Fred Barnard with fifty-nine composite woodblock engravings (1875). 9.5 cm high by 13.8 cm wide (3 ¾ by 6 ½ inches), framed. Running head: "Mr. Noggs becomes Excited" (205). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

Passage Illustrated: Noggs senses that Nicholas is in danger

"Have you seen the old lady?" asked Newman.

"You mean Mrs. Nickleby?’ said Miss La Creevy. "Then I tell you what, Mr. Noggs, if you want to keep in the good books in that quarter, you had better not call her the old lady any more, for I suspect she wouldn’t be best pleased to hear you. Yes, I went there the night before last, but she was quite on the high ropes about something, and was so grand and mysterious, that I couldn’t make anything of her: so, to tell you the truth, I took it into my head to be grand too, and came away in state. I thought she would have come round again before this, but she hasn’t been here."

"About Miss Nickleby —" said Newman.

"Why, she was here twice while I was away," returned Miss La Creevy. "I was afraid she mightn’t like to have me calling on her among those great folks in what’s-its-name Place, so I thought I’d wait a day or two, and if I didn’t see her, write."

"Ah!" exclaimed Newman, cracking his fingers.

"However, I want to hear all the news about them from you," said Miss La Creevy. "How is the old rough and tough monster of Golden Square? Well, of course; such people always are. I don’t mean how is he in health, but how is he going on: how is he behaving himself?"

"Damn him!" cried Newman, dashing his cherished hat on the floor; "like a false hound."

"Gracious, Mr. Noggs, you quite terrify me!" exclaimed Miss La Creevy, turning pale.

"I should have spoilt his features yesterday afternoon if I could have afforded it," said Newman, moving restlessly about, and shaking his fist at a portrait of Mr. Canning over the mantelpiece. "I was very near it. I was obliged to put my hands in my pockets, and keep ‘em there very tight. I shall do it some day in that little back-parlour, I know I shall. I should have done it before now, if I hadn’t been afraid of making bad worse. I shall double-lock myself in with him and have it out before I die, I’m quite certain of it."

"I shall scream if you don’t compose yourself, Mr. Noggs," said Miss La Creevy; "I’m sure I shan’t be able to help it."

"Never mind," rejoined Newman, darting violently to and fro. "He’s coming up tonight: I wrote to tell him. He little thinks I know; he little thinks I care. Cunning scoundrel! he don’t think that. Not he, not he. Never mind, I’ll thwart him — I, Newman Noggs. Ho, ho, the rascal!"

Lashing himself up to an extravagant pitch of fury, Newman Noggs jerked himself about the room with the most eccentric motion ever beheld in a human being: now sparring at the little miniatures on the wall, and now giving himself violent thumps on the head, as if to heighten the delusion, until he sank down in his former seat quite breathless and exhausted. [Chapter XXXI, "Of Ralph Nickleby and Newman Noggs, and some wise Precautions, the success or failure of which will appear in the Sequel," 204-205]

Commentary: Who is Newman Noggs?

Harry Furniss's detached character study of the goggle-eyed clerk in the Charles Dickens Library Edition: Newman Noggs (1910).

Newman Noggs, Ralph Nickleby's cynical, long-suffering clerk is yet another iteration of the Comic Man of domestic Victorian melodrama. Prior to becoming the curmudgeonly Raph's clerk, Noggs had his own business. However, when he went bankrupt, he became a malcontented alcoholic whose irrational mental ticks and ironic comments mask his sympathetic nature and genuine insights into human nature. He becomes one of the picaresque hero's chief friends, the Sancho Panza to Nicholas's Don Quixote. Kyd's version of Noggs in the Player's Cigarette Card series captures well the middle-aged alcoholic's rubicund nose, which adds humour to his benign expression. According to Dickens's description of him Chapter 2, Noggs immediately strikes the reader as decidedly odd:

In obedience to this summons the clerk got off the high stool (to which he had communicated a high polish by countless gettings off and on), and presented himself in Mr. Nickleby’s room. He was a tall man of middle age, with two goggle eyes whereof one was a fixture, a rubicund nose, a cadaverous face, and a suit of clothes (if the term be allowable when they suited him not at all) much the worse for wear, very much too small, and placed upon such a short allowance of buttons that it was marvellous how he contrived to keep them on.

The Situation Described on the Eve of Nicholas's Return to London

Phiz's serial illustration depicts Nicholas's learning of the danger to which Ralph Nickleby has exposed his niece: Nicholas Attracted by the Mention of His Sister's Name in the Coffee-Room (January 1839).

Having learned from a recently received letter that Nicholas is returning to London that very evening, Newman Noggs becomes concerned that the youth will attempt to chastise and even assault Ralph Nickleby for his introducing Kate to his dissipated aristocratic associates Sir Mulberry Hawk and Lord Frederick Verisopht. Miss La Creevy, having been away in the country at her brother's estate, has not seen either Mrs. Nickleby or Kate in some time. She now agrees to intercept Kate and take her for an evening at the theatre so that Nicholas will not be able to find her and learn the extent of Ralph's failure to protect his niece. Whereas the original serial illustration showed Nicholas's discovery through a coffee-house conversation, Barnard like Reinhart in the American Household Edition has chosen to illustrate the meeting of two of the novel's most engaging secondary characters, the quirky clerk and the charming miniaturist, in her studio.

Both Household Edition illustrators have chosen to focus not on Nicholas's apprehension of his sister's situation through an overheard coffee-house conversation (the scene which Phiz described in January 1839), but on Newman Noggs' and miss la Creevy's shared concern that Nicholas, upon returning to LOndon, will assault a wealthy, influential relative who will not scruple to turn the law on his nephew.

The American Household Edition's Parallel Illustration of Noggs's Visit

Above: C. S. Reinhart's 1875 American Household Editioncomposite woodblock engraving of Noggs's realizing that Nicholas will act impetuously if he learns of Kate's treatment by Ralph's dissolute associates: "I should have spoiled his features yesterday afternoon if I could have afforded it,' said Newman.

Illustrations of Ralph Nickleby's Clerk from Other Editions (1838, 1875, and 1910)

Left: Clayton J. Clarke's Player's Cigarette Card No. 46: Newman Noggs (1910). Centre: C. S. Reinhart's initial description of Newman Noggs for the American Household Edition (1875). Right: Phiz introduces Nickleby's sardonic clerk in Chapter 11: Newman Noggs Leaves the Ladies in the Empty House (June 1838).

Related material, including front matter and sketches, by other illustrators

Scanned image, colour correction, sizing, caption, and commentary 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.]

Bibliography

Barnard, J. "Fred" (il.). Charles Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby, with fifty-eight illustrations. The Works of Charles Dickens: The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1875. Volume 15. Rpt. 1890.

Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. Oxford and New York: Oxford U. P., 1988.

Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998.

Dickens, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. With fifty-two illustrations by C. S. Reinhart. The Household Edition. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1872. I.

__________. Nicholas Nickleby. With 39 illustrations by Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz"). London: Chapman & Hall, 1839.

__________. Nicholas Nickleby. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. 4.

__________. "Nicholas Nickleby." Scenes and Characters from the Works of Charles Dickens, being eight hundred and sixty-six drawings by Fred Barnard et al.. Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1908.

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Created 14 August 2021