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Nicholas Attracted by the Mention of His Sister'sName in the Coffee-Room
Phiz (Hablot K. Browne)
January 1839
Steel-engraving
11.6 high cm by 10.6 cm wide, vignetted
Twentieth plate for Dickens's Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, Chapter XXXII.
Source: J. A. Hammerton, The Dickens Picture-Book, p. 159.
"Little Kate Nickleby!" cried a voice behind him.
"I was right," muttered Nicholas as the paper fell from his hand. "And it was the man I supposed.
As there was a proper objection to drinking her in heeltaps," said the voice, "we'll give her the first glass in the new magnum. Little Kate Nickleby!"
"Little Kate Nickleby," cried the other three. And the glasses were set down empty.
Keenly alive to the tone and manner of this slight and careless mention of his sister's name in a public place, Nicholas fired at once; but he kept himself quiet by a great effort, and did not even turn his head. [Chapter XXXII, "Relating chiefly to some remarkable Conversation, and some remarkable Proceedings to which it gives rise," Part 10, January 1839]
Nicholas apprehends that his sister's reputation, if not her actual person, is in danger. The rakish stranger who is taking liberties with Kate's name in the luxurious hotel near Hyde Park is none other than the designing, dissipated aristocrat Sir Mulberry Hawk. Although Nicholas, just back from Portsmouth, restrains himself in order to follow the gentlemen's conversation about his family, Nicholas, upset, at last can bear no more and challenges the speaker, demanding to know the stranger's name. Phiz has captured well Nicholas's indignation and suggests the looseness of the other two young aristocrats' conversation and morality by their postures (centre). The dissipation of Sir Mulberry's company is emphasized by the third roisterer seated behind Nicholas, whose paper still lies spread out before him. Phiz depicts that moment at which Nicholas, unable to restrain himself any longer, is about to rise to defend his sister's honour.
Left: 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. Right: Fred Barnard's depiction of Noggs's visit to Miss La Creevy's studio: 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.
Above: In Fred Barnard's dramatic, full-page realisation, Hawk and Nicholas carry their quarrel outside the hotel and into the street: Sir Mulberry, shortening his whip, applied it furiously the head and shoulders of Nicholas. It was broken in the struggle; Nicholas gained the heavy handle, and with it laid open one side of his antagonist's face from the eye to the lip."
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 updated 15 August 2021