"And many times turning back to wave his hat to the two wayfarers." — Chapter 22. C. S. Reinhart's twenty-third illustration for Dickens's "Nicholas Nickleby" (1875)

And many times turning back to wave his hat to the two wayfarers [Page 120] by Charles Stanley Reinhart (1875), in Charles Dickens's The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, Harper & Bros. New York Household Edition, for Chapter XXII. 9 x 13.7 cm (3 ½ by 5 ⅜ inches), framed. Running head: "Trudging Along" (121). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

Passage Illustrated: Noggs bids Nicholas Nickleby and his odd companion farewell

The Country Manager Rehearses a Combat (October 1838), by Phiz in the original serial illustration for Ch. XXII.

"So deep," replied his young friend, "that even I can’t fathom it. Whatever I resolve upon, depend upon it I will write you soon."

"You won’t forget?" said Newman.

"I am not very likely to," rejoined Nicholas. "I have not so many friends that I shall grow confused among the number, and forget my best one."

Occupied in such discourse, they walked on for a couple of hours, as they might have done for a couple of days if Nicholas had not sat himself down on a stone by the wayside, and resolutely declared his intention of not moving another step until Newman Noggs turned back. Having pleaded ineffectually first for another half-mile, and afterwards for another quarter, Newman was fain to comply, and to shape his course towards Golden Square, after interchanging many hearty and affectionate farewells, and many times turning back to wave his hat to the two wayfarers when they had become mere specks in the distance. [Chapter XXII, "Nicholas, accompanied by Smike, sallies forth to seek his Fortune. He encounters Mr. Vincent Crummles; and who he was, is herein made manifest," 119]

Commentary

Reinhart focuses not upon the wayfarers themselves, the mismatched Smike and Nicholas, escapees from Dotheboys Hall in Yorkshire, but upon their red-nosed mentor, Ralph Nickleby's sardonic clerk, Newman Noggs. In the original serialisation, Dickens's first illustrator, Phiz, illustrated the same chapter with a far more comic moment, the scene in the Portsmouth theatre involving the rehearsing of a sword fight under the direction of actor-manager Vincent Crummles.

Other editions' illustrations for this chapter and Noggs (1867-1910)

Left: Harry Furniss's 1910 lithographic study of the bibulous clerk: Newman Noggs, in the Charles Dickens Library Edition. Centre: In the 1875 British Household Edition Fred Barnard introduces the actor-manager whom the wayfarers encounter at Portsmouth: Mr. Crummles looked, from time to time, with great interest at Smike, with whom he had appeared considerably struck from the first. He had now fallen asleep, and was nodding in his chair. Right: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s American Diamond Editionportrait of the comic clerk: Newman Noggs (1867).

Related material by other illustrators (1838 through 1910)

Scanned image, colour correction, sizing, caption, and commentary by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose, as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image, and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Bibliography

Barnard, J. "Fred" (il.). Charles Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby, with fifty-nine illustrations. The Works of Charles Dickens: The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1875. Volume 15. Rpt. 1890.

Dickens, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. With fifty-two illustrations by C. S. Reinhart. The Household Edition. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1875.

__________. "Nicholas Nickleby." Scenes and Characters from the Works of Charles Dickens, being eight hundred and sixty-six drawings by Fred Barnard et al.. Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1908.

Created 1 August 2021