"Madeline, who is this — what does any body want here?" [Page 252] by Charles Stanley Reinhart (1875), in Charles Dickens's The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, Harper & Bros. New York Household Edition, for Chapter XLVI. 10.4 x 13.6 cm (4 ⅛ by 5 ⅜ inches), framed. Running head: "The Young Gentleman Explains" (223). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Passage Illustrated: Nicholas visits the Brays
And yet Nicholas was in the Rules of the King’s Bench Prison! If he had been in Italy indeed, and the time had been sunset, and the scene a stately terrace! But, there is one broad sky over all the world, and whether it be blue or cloudy, the same heaven beyond it; so, perhaps, he had no need of compunction for thinking as he did.
It is not to be supposed that he took in everything at one glance, for he had as yet been unconscious of the presence of a sick man propped up with pillows in an easy-chair, who, moving restlessly and impatiently in his seat, attracted his attention.
He was scarce fifty, perhaps, but so emaciated as to appear much older. His features presented the remains of a handsome countenance, but one in which the embers of strong and impetuous passions were easier to be traced than any expression which would have rendered a far plainer face much more prepossessing. His looks were very haggard, and his limbs and body literally worn to the bone, but there was something of the old fire in the large sunken eye notwithstanding, and it seemed to kindle afresh as he struck a thick stick, with which he seemed to have supported himself in his seat, impatiently on the floor twice or thrice, and called his daughter by her name.
"Madeline, who is this? What does anybody want here? Who told a stranger we could be seen? What is it?" [Chapter XLVI, "Throws some Light upon Nicholas’s Love; but whether for Good or Evil the Reader must determine," 251]
Commentary: Nicholas finally meets the Mystery Lady — in a Debtor's Apartments
Reinhart employs Nicholas's commission to Walter Bray to bring together the hero and heroine of the novel. Probably using the June 1839 serial illustration as his starting point, Reinhart has incorporated a number of details that reveal how Madeline has been constantly striving through the exercise of her easel and paints to make her invalid-father's life more comfortable. He wears an elegant dressing-gown, and supports himself with a fashionable cane. Moreover, Reinhart has filled the room with expensive furnishings and conventional upper-middle-class bric-a-brac of the precise kinds specified by Dickens as nicholas enters the front parlour: an overstuffed chair, a harp, and a songbird in a gilded cage, as swell as paintings, vases, and an overflowing mantlepiece. The lean-faced curmudgeon, perhaps once attractive but now merely warped, looks suspiciously at Nicholas, as if the well-dressed, handsome young clerk threatens this menage — which as Madeline's prospective husband Nicholas certainly does.
Other Editions' Handling of Nicholas and Madeline (1839 and 1910)
Left: Phiz finally brings Nicholas and Madeline face to face in Nicholas Makes His First Visit to Mr. Bray (June 1839). Right: Harry Furniss's interpretation of Nicholas's later rescue of Madeline: Nicholas rescues Madeline (1910).
.Other Editions' Versions of the Mysterious Madeline Bray (1875 and 1867)
Left: Fred Barnard finally brings Nicholas and Madeline face to face in "No matter! Do you think you bring your paltry money here s a favour or gift; or as a matter of business, and in return for value received?" (1875). Right: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s Diamond Edition study of the novel's belatedly introduced secondary heroine: Walter Bray and Madeline (1867).
Related material by other illustrators (1838 through 1910)
- Nineteenth-Century Britain, a Nation of Debtors
- Convicted Debtors in Charles Dickens's Life and Work
- Nicholas Nickleby (homepage)
- Phiz's 38 monthly illustrations for the novel, April 1838-October 1839.
- Cover for monthly parts
- Charles Dickens by Daniel Maclise, engraved by Finden
- "Hush!" said Nicholas, laying his hand upon his shoulder. (Vol. 1, 1861)
- The Rehearsal (Vol. 2, 1861)
- "My son, sir, little Wackford. What do you think of him, sir?" (Vol. 3, 1861)
- Newman had caught up by the nozzle an old pair of bellows . . . (Vol. 4, 1861).
- Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s 18 Illustrations for the Diamond Edition (1867)
- Fred Barnard's 59 Illustrations for the British Household Edition (1875)
- Harry Furniss's 29 illustrations for Nicholas Nickleby in the Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910)
- Kyd's four Player's Cigarette Cards (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. I.
_______. Nicholas Nickleby. With 39 illustrations by Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz"). London: Chapman & Hall, 1839.
_______. Nicholas Nickleby. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. IV.
__________. "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 9 September 2021