"Mrs. Kenwigs threw herself upon the old gentleman's neck." — Chapter 52. C. S. Reinhart's forty-fifth illustration for Dickens's "Nicholas Nickleby" (1875)

Mrs. Kenwigs threw herself upon the old gentleman's neck. [Page 284] by Charles Stanley Reinhart (1875), in Charles Dickens's The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, Harper & Bros. New York Household Edition, for Chapter LII. 8.9 x 13.7 cm (3 ½ by 5 ⅜ inches), framed. Running head: "Reconciliation" (285). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

Passage Illustrated: The Upside of a Marital Breakdown

Right: Great Excitement of Miss Kenwigs at the Hairdresser's Shop (August 1839), in which Phiz reintroduces the Kenwigses exactly a year after their first appearance.

Mr. and Mrs. Kenwigs started together.

"Eloped with a half-pay captain," repeated Mr. Lillyvick, "basely and falsely eloped with a half-pay captain. With a bottle-nosed captain that any man might have considered himself safe from. It was in this room," said Mr. Lillyvick, looking sternly round, "that I first see Henrietta Petowker. It is in this room that I turn her off, for ever."

This declaration completely changed the whole posture of affairs. Mrs. Kenwigs threw herself upon the old gentleman’s neck, bitterly reproaching herself for her late harshness, and exclaiming, if she had suffered, what must his sufferings have been! Mr. Kenwigs grasped his hand, and vowed eternal friendship and remorse. Mrs. Kenwigs was horror-stricken to think that she should ever have nourished in her bosom such a snake, adder, viper, serpent, and base crocodile as Henrietta Petowker. Mr. Kenwigs argued that she must have been bad indeed not to have improved by so long a contemplation of Mrs. Kenwigs’s virtue. Mrs. Kenwigs remembered that Mr. Kenwigs had often said that he was not quite satisfied of the propriety of Miss Petowker’s conduct, and wondered how it was that she could have been blinded by such a wretch. Mr. Kenwigs remembered that he had had his suspicions, but did not wonder why Mrs. Kenwigs had not had hers, as she was all chastity, purity, and truth, and Henrietta all baseness, falsehood, and deceit. And Mr. and Mrs. Kenwigs both said, with strong feelings and tears of sympathy, that everything happened for the best; and conjured the good collector not to give way to unavailing grief, but to seek consolation in the society of those affectionate relations whose arms and hearts were ever open to him. [Chapter LII, "Nicholas despairs of rescuing Madeline Bray, but plucks up his Spirits again, and determines to attempt it. Domestic Intelligence of the Kenwigses and Lillyvicks," 284]

Commentary: The Kenwigses are back in Uncle Lillyvick's Will

Dickens now briefly reverts to the fortunes of the Susan Kenwigs, her hapless husband, and their five young children (four of them girls). The couple have worked tirelessly to ingratiate themselves with Susan's rich uncle, the water rate-collector, Mr. Lillyvick, but his marrying a young, fortune-hunting Drury Lane actress, Henrietta Petowker, has dashed their hopes of being retained as his heirs. However, their fortunes suddenly take a turn for the better as, delivering Morleena home from the neighbourhood barber in the company of Newman Noggs, he reveals that she has run off with a half-pay captain. Worse yet, she has absconded with a dozen sterling teaspoons and twenty-four pounds in sovereigns.

Initially, when he visits them at Golden Square, the Kenwigses are not happy to see him. Having always been their welcome guest, Uncle Lillyvick has turned his back on them; they accuse him of ingratitude, and of never having cared about them: they assert that they never cared in the least about his money or the property in his esdate. He now reveals that his wife has eloped with a handsome military officer, and declares that he is about to cut Henrietta out of his will, and that the Kenwigses will be his sole heirs after all. Reinhart treats the scene seriously, inserting only the comic observer, Newman Noggs (right). The well-dressed rate-collector seems glad to be welcomed back by his niece and her solicitous husband, who shakes Lillyvick's hand and earnestly glances at him, undoubtedly elated by their sudden change of fortune.

The Kenwigses from Other Editions (1839, 1875, and 1910)

Left: Phiz's introduction of the Kenwigses coincides with Nicholas's return to London from Yorkshire: Nicholas Engaged as Tutor in a Private Family (August 1838). Centre: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s study of the reunited Kenwigs family after the actress has run off: The Kenwigs Family and Mr. Lillyvick (1867). Right: Fred Barnard's introduction of the Kenwigs family in Chapter 14: "I can — not help it, and it don't signify," sobbed Mrs. Kenwigs. "Oh! they're too beautiful to live, much too beautiful!" in the British Household Edition.

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. 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 23 September 2021