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Nicholas Hints at the Probability of His Leaving the Company
Phiz (Hablot K. Browne)
December 1838
Steel-engraving
11.6 high cm by 10.6 cm wide, vignetted
Eighteenth plate for Dickens's Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, Chapter XXIX.
Source: J. A. Hammerton, The Dickens Picture-Book, p. 159.
"I have some reason to fear," interrupted Nicholas, "that before you leave here my career with you will have closed.
"Closed!" cried Mrs. Crummles, raising her hands in astonishment.
Closed!" cried Miss Snevellicci, trembling so much in her tights that she actually laid her hand upon the shoulder of the manageress for support.
"Why, he don't mean to say he's going!" exclaimed Mrs. Grudden, making her way towards Mrs. Crummles, "Hoity toity! Nonsense."
The phenomenon, being of an affectionate nature and moreover excitable, raised a loud cry, and Miss Belvawney and Miss Bravassa actually shed tears. Even the male performers stopped in their conversation, and echoed the word "Going!" although some among them (and they had been the loudest in their congratulations that day) winked at each other as though they would not be sorry to lose such a favoured rival . . . . [Ch. XXIX, "Of the Proceedings of Nicholas, and certain Internal Divisions in the Company of Mr. Vincent Crummles," Part 9, December 1838]
Nicholas and Smike, centre, stand out from the rest of the company by virtue of the fact that they are in street clothes rather than costume. Appropriately, Mrs. Crummles (right foreground) is dressed as a Renaissance queen, and her husband (centre, left) as a Renaissance monarch. As in the letterpress, the young women seem far more concerned than the young men of the company about the prospect of Nicholas's leaving. And no wonderr: whereas the female cast members have admired the handsome youth's face and form, the male cast, led by the tragedian, Lenville, and the pantomimist, Mr. Folair, have resented Nicholas's popularity with Portsmouth audiences. Indeed, Nicholas's premature departure has been in part occasioned by his having been called out by Folair and threatened with physical assault by Lenville, incidents in this chapter realised by the Household Edition illustrators in London and New York in 1875.
Above: Fred Barnard's 1875 British Household Editioncomposite woodblock engraving of the backstage party at which the veteran actor Snevellicci acts inappropriately: Mr. Snevellicci repeated the wink, and, drinking to Mrs. Lillyvick in dumb-show, actually blew her a kiss.
Dickens, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. Illustrated by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, 1839.
_______. Nicolas Nickleby. Illustrated by "Phiz" (Hablot Knight Browne). The Gadshill Edition, ed. Andrew Lang. The Works of Charles Dickens in Thirty-four Volumes. London: Chapman and Hall, 1897. Vols. IV and V.
_______. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr., and engraved by A. V. S. Anthony. Boston: James R. Osgood & Co., Late Ticknor and Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co., 1875 [re-print of 1867 Diamond Edition, Vol. IV].
_______. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. With fifty-two illustrations by C. S. Reinhart. The Household Edition. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1875. I.
_______. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. With fifty-nine illustrations by Fred Barnard. The Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1875. IV.
__________. Nicholas Nickleby. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. IV.
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.
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 25 April 2002 Last modified 12 August 2021