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Madame Mantalini Introduces Kate to Miss Knag
Phiz (Hablot K. Browne)
Part 5 (August 1838)
Steel-engraving
10.3 cm high by 10.3 cm wide, vignetted
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Scanned image colour correction, sizing, caption, and commentary by Philip V. Allingham.
On Madame Mantalini calling aloud for Miss Knag, a short, bustling, over-dressed female, full of importance, presented herself, and all the young ladies suspending their operations for the moment, whispered to each other sundry criticisms upon the make and texture of Miss Nickleby’s dress, her complexion, cast of features, and personal appearance, with as much good breeding as could have been displayed by the very best society in a crowded ball-room.
"Oh, Miss Knag," said Madame Mantalini, "this is the young person I spoke to you about."
Miss Knag bestowed a reverential smile upon Madame Mantalini, which she dexterously transformed into a gracious one for Kate, and said that certainly, although it was a great deal of trouble to have young people who were wholly unused to the business, still, she was sure the young person would try to do her best—impressed with which conviction she (Miss Knag) felt an interest in her, already. [Ch. XVII, "Follows the Fortunes of Miss Nickleby"]
Left: In the American Household Edition, Reinhart appears to have considered Phiz's realisation of the shop scene, particularly in terms of Mrs. Mantalini's dress: "Oh, Miss Knag," said Madame Mantalini, "this is the young person I spoke to you about." (1875). Centre: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s American Diamond Editioncomposite woodblock portrait of the diligent dressmaker-milliner and her shiftless husband: Mr. and Madame Mantalini (1867). Right: Harry Furniss's 1910 lithograph representing the fashionable West End dressmaker, What Ralph Nickleby saw at Mrs. Mantalini's, in the Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910).
Overdressed and vain, Mrs. Mantalini's chief of the cutting-room's young seamstresses, Miss Knag, eventually takes over the business when Mrs. Mantalini is driven into bankruptcy by her profligate husband. In the 1875 Household Edition illustration of the shop, C. S. Reinhart has improved on the Phiz original in terms of uncluttering the cutting-room, rendering the fashionable proprietress as goddess-like, and her middle-aged "First Minister" less caricatural. Nevertheless, Phiz gives a better sense of the bustling nature of the cutting-room, inhabited by a dozen young seamstresses. His Miss Knag with a nutcracker visage seems smug &mdaash; as well as overdressed — as she dances attendance on her mistress. Since Madame Mantalini is wont to pull Mis Knag's leg, Phiz has turned her face from the viewer, who must construct the businesswoman's ironic smileas she seems to be belittling Kate for her deputy's benefit. Whereas later illustrators tend to emphasize this as a dressmaker's shop, Phiz focuses on huge millinery boxes.
Dickens, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. Illustrated by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, 1839.
_______. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. Ed. Andrew Lang. Illustrated by 'Phiz' (Hablot Knight Browne). The Gadshill Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1897. 2 vols.
Steig, Michael. Chapter 2. "The Beginnings of 'Phiz': Pickwick, Nickleby, and the Emergence from Caricature." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U. P., 1978. 24-50.
Thomas, Deborah A. "Chapter 2: Imaginative Overindulgence." Dickens and the Short Story. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982. 7-31.
Vann, J. Don. "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, twenty parts in nineteen monthly installments, April 1838-October 1839." New York: Modern Language Association, 1985. 63.
Created 22 April 2002 Last modified 6 August 2021