Sally Brass by J. Clayton Clarke ("Kyd") for the watercolour series (1910): reproduced on John Player cigarette card no. 30: 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.]
SALLY BRASS (The Old Curiosity Shop.)
The semi-masculine sister of smooth-tongued Sampson — “the Virgin of Bevis Marks” — “a female who has all the charms of her sex and none of their weaknesses” — who is “Justice with the bandage off her eyes and without the sword and scales,” and who has a strong partiality for snuff. Such is the fair Sally, “the sphinx of private life.” [Verso of Card No. 30]
Passage Illustrated: Verbal Portrait of Sally Brass: Amazon at Common Law
Right: Brigden's 1978 redrafting of Kyd's original illustration, Sally Brass.
But this was mere still-life, of no greater importance than the plate, ‘Brass, Solicitor,’ upon the door, and the bill, ‘First floor to let to a single gentleman,’ which was tied to the knocker. The office commonly held two examples of animated nature, more to the purpose of this history, and in whom it has a stronger interest and more particular concern.
Of these, one was Mr. Brass himself, who has already appeared in these pages. The other was his clerk, assistant, housekeeper, secretary, confidential plotter, adviser, intriguer, and bill of cost increaser, Miss Brass — a kind of amazon at common law, of whom it may be desirable to offer a brief description.
Miss Sally Brass, then, was a lady of thirty-five or thereabouts, of a gaunt and bony figure, and a resolute bearing, which if it repressed the softer emotions of love, and kept admirers at a distance, certainly inspired a feeling akin to awe in the breasts of those male strangers who had the happiness to approach her. In face she bore a striking resemblance to her brother, Sampson — so exact, indeed, was the likeness between them, that had it consorted with Miss Brass’s maiden modesty and gentle womanhood to have assumed her brother’s clothes in a frolic and sat down beside him, it would have been difficult for the oldest friend of the family to determine which was Sampson and which Sally, especially as the lady carried upon her upper lip certain reddish demonstrations, which, if the imagination had been assisted by her attire, might have been mistaken for a beard. These were, however, in all probability, nothing more than eyelashes in a wrong place, as the eyes of Miss Brass were quite free from any such natural impertinencies. In complexion Miss Brass was sallow — rather a dirty sallow, so to speak — but this hue was agreeably relieved by the healthy glow which mantled in the extreme tip of her laughing nose. Her voice was exceedingly impressive — deep and rich in quality, and, once heard, not easily forgotten. Her usual dress was a green gown, in colour not unlike the curtain of the office window, made tight to the figure, and terminating at the throat, where it was fastened behind by a peculiarly large and massive button. Feeling, no doubt, that simplicity and plainness are the soul of elegance, Miss Brass wore no collar or kerchief except upon her head, which was invariably ornamented with a brown gauze scarf, like the wing of the fabled vampire, and which, twisted into any form that happened to suggest itself, formed an easy and graceful head-dress.
Such was Miss Brass in person. In mind, she was of a strong and vigorous turn, having from her earliest youth devoted herself with uncommon ardour to the study of law; not wasting her speculations upon its eagle flights, which are rare, but tracing it attentively through all the slippery and eel-like crawlings in which it commonly pursues its way. Nor had she, like many persons of great intellect, confined herself to theory, or stopped short where practical usefulness begins; inasmuch as she could ingross, fair-copy, fill up printed forms with perfect accuracy, and, in short, transact any ordinary duty of the office down to pouncing a skin of parchment or mending a pen. It is difficult to understand how, possessed of these combined attractions, she should remain Miss Brass; but whether she had steeled her heart against mankind, or whether those who might have wooed and won her, were deterred by fears that, being learned in the law, she might have too near her fingers’ ends those particular statutes which regulate what are familiarly termed actions for breach, certain it is that she was still in a state of celibacy, and still in daily occupation of her old stool opposite to that of her brother Sampson. And equally certain it is, by the way, that between these two stools a great many people had come to the ground. [Household Edition, Part 19, 12 September 1840: Chapter XXXIII, pp. 277-278]
Commentary: Kyd's Sources
Kyd's 1910 full-length portrait of the angular, squint-faced female attorney (although not certified as "called to bar") is one of nine in Kyd's series for The Old Curiosity Shop, or 18% of the total among his "Characters from Dickens." The others are as follows:
- Dick Swiveller, no. 11;
- Mr. Chuckster, no. 12;
- the innocent and virtuous heroine, Nell, no. 22;
- the Punch-and-Judy man Short (Harris), no. 26;
- the villainous, lecherous Quilp, no. 26;
- the Brasses' quirky maid The Marchioness, no. 28;
- the fawning, unscrupulous attorney of record at Bevis Marks, Sampson Brass, no. 19;
- and the morose itinerant puppeteer Tommy Codlin, no. 31.
Kyd's representations are largely based on the original illustrations by Phiz and Seymour, although the modelling of the figures is suggestive of Phiz's own, expanded series for Household Edition volume, which contains Thomas Worth's fifty-four large-scale composite woodblock engravings (1874). Surprisingly, some of the other significant characters of the early novels, evidently still very popular with turn-of-the-century readers, including Nancy and Rose Maylie, are not among the first set of fifty characters. Kyd exhibits something of a male bias, as he realizes only seven female characters: only the beloved Nell, the abrasive Sally Brass, and the quirky Marchioness from The Old Curiosity Shop, Sairey Gamp from Martin Chuzzlewit, Aunt Betsey Trotwood from David Copperfield, the burly Mrs. McStinger from Dombey and Son, and the awkward Fanny Squeers from Nicholas Nickleby appear in the essentially comic cavalcade.
Gaunt, repulsive Sally — but professionally if not sternly dressed, according to Kyd's description — acts as her brother Sampson's law clerk; however, in contradiction to her gendered role as his confidante and advisor, she takes Quilp's part when Sampson plans to betray him. Thus, the illustrator must suggest her Amazonian strength of character and canniness, as well as catch the original illustrator's sense of her as androgynous rather than feminine. Kyd admirably suggests her arrogant and dictatorial nature through her facial expression and carriage.
Other Relevant Illustrations for Dickens's The Old Curiosity
Left: Quilp leering at the brasses by Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz) for 5 September 1840. Right: Worth's "What do you taunt me about going to keep a clerk for?" (American Household Edition, Ch. XXXIV).
Left: Quilp looks into the Attorney's Parlour by Harry Furniss for The Illustrated Library Edition (1910), Chapter XXXIII. Right: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s Diamond Edition dual study, Sampson and Sally Brass for Ch. XXXIII (1867).
Charles Green's British Household Edition illustration moves to the later part of Chapter XXXIII, when Dick, installed opposite Sally and copying a legal document, flirts with the notion of swatting his employer with the ruler and knocking off her head-dress, In some of these flourishes it went close to Miss Sally's head (1876). Right: Harry Furniss's culmination of his series, Sally Brass under Examination in Chapter LXVI (1910).
Other Artists Who Worked on The Old Curiosity Shop (1841-1924)
- George Cattermole (13 plates selected)
- Hablot Knight Browne (61 wood-engravings)
- Felix O. C. Darley (4 photogravure plates)
- Sol Eytinge, Jr. (8 wood engravings)
- Thomas Worth (47 wood engravings)
- Charles Green (39 wood engravings)
- W. H. C. Groome (9 lithographs)
- Harry Furniss (31 lithographs plus engraved title)
- Harold Copping (2 chromolithographs selected)
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 person who scanned them and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography: Illustrated Editions of The Old Curiosity Shop
Brigden, C. A. T. “No. 13. Sally Brass.” The Characters from Charles Dickens as depicted by Kyd. Rochester, Kent: John Hallewell, 1978. Page 19.
The Characters of Charles Dickens pourtrayed in a series of original watercolours by “Kyd.” London, Paris, and New York: Raphael Tuck & Sons, nd.
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 8 January 2015
Last updated 18 July 2025