Dickens's "Nicholas and Smike" by Harold Copping (1924)

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Nicholas and Smike

Harold Copping

1924

Line drawing in lithograph

4 ⅝ inches high by 4 ¼ inches wide (11.8 x 10.7 cm)

From "Smike, and Dotheboys Hall in Children's Stories from Dickens, p. 88.

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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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Passage Illustrated: Nicholas first encounters Smike at Dotheboys Hall, Yorkshire

Nicholas, when school was over, was thinking deeply over the place he had come to, when he all at once encountered the upturned face of Smike, who was on his knees before the stove, picking a few stray cinders from the hearth and planting them on the fire. He had paused to steal a look at Nicholas, and when he saw that he was observed shrunk back as if expecting a blow.

"You need not fear me," said Nicholas, kindly. "Are you cold?" ["Smike, and Dotheboys Hall," Children's Stories from Dickens, 89]

Commentary: "The Upturned Face of Smike"

In contrast to other illustrators' versions of Smike as physically distorted and painfully awkward, Copping's highly realistic and three-dimensional study of the weak, rake-thin student and the young master presents them both without undue sentiment or caricature. However, Copping does not depict Nicholas, the novel's youthful protagonist, as particularly "kind" or sympathetic; at best, he is aloof. And a further discrepancy is that Smike is evading Nicholas's gaze, not "stealing a look" at the new usher.

Illustrations of Smike in Other Editions (1838 to 1910)

Left: Harry Furniss's version focuses on Smike and excludes Nicholas as his backstage tutor: Smike rehearses as the Apothecary (1910). Centre: Phiz's realisation of the backstage scene in which Nicholas coaches a gangly, distraught Smike: Nicholas instructs Smike in the Art of Acting (November 1838). Right of centre: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s frontispiece of Nicholas consoling Smike at Dotheboys' Hall: Nicholas and Smike (1867). Right: Harry Furniss's psychological examination of Smike: Smike Delusion (1910).

Related material, including front matter and sketches, by other illustrators

Nicholas Nickleby (homepage)
Phiz's 38 monthly illustrations for the novel, April 1938-October 1839
"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 Household Edution (1877)
C. S. Reinhart's 52 Illustrations for the American Household Edution (1875)
Harry Furniss's 29 illustrations for Nicholas Nickleby in the Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910)
Kyd's four Player's Cigarette Cards (1910)

Bibliography

Dickens, Charles. The LIfe and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. Illustrated by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, 1839.

Dickens, Mary Angela, Percy Fitzgerald, Captain Edric Vredenburg, and Others. Illustrated by Harold Copping with eleven coloured lithographs. Children's Stories from Dickens. London: Raphael Tuck, 1893.

Matz, B. W., and Kate Perugini; illustrated by Harold Copping. "Nicholas Nickleby." Character Sketches from Dickens. London: Raphael Tuck, 1924. Pp. 39-51.

Created 11 October 2023