Bill Sikes by J. Clayton Clarke ("Kyd") for the 1910 watercolour series: reproduced on John Player cigarette card no. 9: Ninety-two Characters from Dickens: The Adventures of Oliver Twist. 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.]
A brutal ruffian, a burglar, who, since his creation, has given a generic name to the burglar for all time. He is one of a very few characters — either in life or fiction — who are utterly devoid of any redeeming trait. His flight, after the murder of Nancy, his terror, his last mad defiance, and dreadful death, are episodes which grip the reader with bands of steel. [Verso over Card No. 9]
Passage Illustrated: Enter an Adult Criminal at the Street-Boys' Hangout
In the commentary on the verso of the Kyd illustration, Sikes's criminality is associated with his having no "redeeming trait." The illustration offers us no context for the point in the story at which the brutal housebreaker is realised, except for the pewter mug he holds in his right hand as he looks to his right.
“Why, what the blazes is in the wind now!” growled a deep voice. “Who pitched that ’ere at me? It’s well it’s the beer, and not the pot, as hit me, or I’d have settled somebody. I might have know’d, as nobody but an infernal, rich, plundering, thundering old Jew could afford to throw away any drink but water — and not that, unless he done the River Company every quarter. Wot’s it all about, Fagin? D — me, if my neck-handkercher an’t lined with beer! Come in, you sneaking warmint; wot are you stopping outside for, as if you was ashamed of your master! Come in!”
The man who growled out these words, was a stoutly-built fellow of about five-and-thirty, in a black velveteen coat, very soiled drab breeches, lace-up half boots, and grey cotton stockings which inclosed a bulky pair of legs, with large swelling calves; — the kind of legs, which in such costume, always look in an unfinished and incomplete state without a set of fetters to garnish them. He had a brown hat on his head, and a dirty belcher handkerchief round his neck: with the long frayed ends of which he smeared the beer from his face as he spoke. He disclosed, when he had done so, a broad heavy countenance with a beard of three days’ growth, and two scowling eyes; one of which displayed various parti-coloured symptoms of having been recently damaged by a blow.
“Come in, d’ye hear?” growled this engaging ruffian. [Household Edition, Chapter XIII, “Some New Acquaintances are Introduced to the Intelligent Reader, Connected with whom Various Pleasant Matters are Related, Appertaining to this History,” pp. 43-44]
Commentary
Although the popular taste in "Characters from Dickens" as well as in "novels from Dickens" has changed markedly over the past century, Bill Sikes, the brutal "housebreaker," is still an able representative of the criminal underworld — a career criminal who has ordained his own fate by the choices he has made, but who has also gained a dubious sort of immortality as Nancy's murderer. Dickens introduces Sikes quite logically as an associate of that notorious fencer of stolen goods, Fagin. As is appropriate to his nature, Kyd introduces the run-down, unshaven housebreaker in clothing that was once fashionable and carrying a pot of beer; he is, however, not carrying the mug, but merely alluding to the beer which Fagin has just thrown at his assailant, The Artful Dodger, accidentally hitting Sikes as he enters the gang's hideout.
Other Player's Cigarette Cards based on Oliver Twist
See the other Kyd character studies of the burglar: also Bill Sikes from Chapter XVI, and Bill Sikes with his cudgel, circa 1900.
Relevant Darley "Character" (1888), Diamond Edition (1867), Household Edition (1871), and Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910) Illustrations
Left: F. O. C. Darley's Sikes, Nancy, and Oliver Twist (1888). Centre: James Mahoney's Household Edition illustration (1871) "You are on the scent, are you, Nancy?" (Fagin, Sikes, and Nancy Bates). Right: Kyd's other watercolour study of Sikes, from The Characters of Charles Dickens (c. 1900). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Left: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s Sikes and Nancy (1867). Centre: Harry Furniss's character study without context: Bill Sikes (1910). Right: F. W. Pailthorpe's illustration depicting a rattled Skies after the murder of Nancy: The antic Fellow and Sikes, in Chapter XLVIII (1886). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Related Material
- Oliver Twist as a Triple-Decker
- Oliver untainted by evil
- Like Martin Chuzzlewit, it agitates for social reform
- Oliver Twist Illustrated, 1837-1910
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
The Characters of Charles Dickens pourtrayed in a series of original watercolours by “Kyd.” Lonodn, Paris, and New York: Raphael Tuck & Sons, nd. [circa 1900]
Darley, Felix Octavius Carr (illustrator). Bill Sikes, Fagin, and Nancy from in Oliver and the Jew Fagin: from the “Oliver Twist” of Charles Dickens in Dickens' Little Folks (First Series). New York: J. S. Redfield, 1856; rpt. John B. Alden, 1866; John R. Anderson, 1878. Pp. 3-179.
Dickens, Charles. The Adventures of Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress. Illustrated by George Cruikshank. London: Chapman & Hall: 1846.
Dickens, Charles. The Adventures of Oliver Twist. Frontispieces by Felix Octavius Carr Darley and Sir John Gilbert. The Household Edition. 55 vols. New York: Sheldon & Co., 1861. 2 vols.
Dickens, Charles. The Adventures of Oliver Twist. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. 14 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. Vol. XI.
Dickens, Charles. The Adventures of Oliver Twist. Illustrated by James Mahoney. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1871. Vol. I.
Dickens, Charles. Oliver Twist. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. III.
Hammerton, J. A. "Chapter 11: Oliver Twist." The Dickens Picture-Book. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. 18 vols. London: Educational Book Co., 1910. Vol. 17. Pp. 129-146.
Pailthorpe, Frederic W. (Illustrator). Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist. London: Robson & Kerslake, 1886. Set No. 118 (coloured) of 200 sets of proof impressions.
Created 5 January 2015
Last modified 7 July 2025