"Mr. Squeers" — Furniss's fourth illustration for Dickens's "Nicholas Nickleby" (1910)

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Mr. Squeers

Harry Furniss

1910

14.2 x 9.5 cm, vignetted

Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby, The Charles Dickens Library Edition, facing IV, 33.

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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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Passage Illustrated: Introducing Wackford Squeers, Headmaster of Dotheboys Hall

Here the little boy on the top of the trunk gave a violent sneeze.

"Halloa, sir!" growled the schoolmaster, turning round. "What’s that, sir?"

"Nothing, please sir," replied the little boy.

"Nothing, sir!" exclaimed Mr. Squeers.

"Please sir, I sneezed," rejoined the boy, trembling till the little trunk shook under him.

"Oh! sneezed, did you?" retorted Mr. Squeers. "Then what did you say 'nothing' for, sir?"

In default of a better answer to this question, the little boy screwed a couple of knuckles into each of his eyes and began to cry, wherefore Mr Squeers knocked him off the trunk with a blow on one side of the face, and knocked him on again with a blow on the other.

"Wait till I get you down into Yorkshire, my young gentleman," said Mr Squeers, "and then I’ll give you the rest. Will you hold that noise, sir?" [Chapter IV, "Nicholas and his Uncle (to secure the Fortune without loss of time) wait upon Mr. Wackford Squeers, the Yorkshire Schoolmaster," 33-34]

Commentary

Dickens describes Nicholas's first impressions of the parsimonious ruffian with a Yorkshire accent in the previously chapter, when the hero spots the villain "breakfasting":

Mr. Squeers’s appearance was not prepossessing. He had but one eye, and the popular prejudice runs in favour of two. The eye he had, was unquestionably useful, but decidedly not ornamental: being of a greenish grey, and in shape resembling the fan-light of a street door. The blank side of his face was much wrinkled and puckered up, which gave him a very sinister appearance, especially when he smiled, at which times his expression bordered closely on the villainous. His hair was very flat and shiny, save at the ends, where it was brushed stiffly up from a low protruding forehead, which assorted well with his harsh voice and coarse manner. He was about two or three and fifty, and a trifle below the middle size; he wore a white neckerchief with long ends, and a suit of scholastic black; but his coat sleeves being a great deal too long, and his trousers a great deal too short, he appeared ill at ease in his clothes, and as if he were in a perpetual state of astonishment at finding himself so respectable. [Chapter IV, 31-32]

Introductory Illustrations of Squeers from Other Editions (1838 to 1910)

Left: The Yorkshire Schoolmaster at The Saracen's Head (April 1838), in which Phiz introduces Nicholas and the reader to the vulgar and brutal schoolmaster who shamelessly exploits the vulnerability of his young charges. Centre: Fred Barnard portrays as brutal, shaggy, and villainous in the Household Edition: The schoolmaster and his companion looked steadily at each other for a few seconds, and then exchanged a very meaning smile (frontispiece, 1875). Right: Clayton J. Clarke's Player's Cigarette Card No. 44: Mr. Squeers (1910).

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

Bibliography

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

Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. Oxford and New York: Oxford U. P., 1988.

Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998.

Dickens, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. With fifty-two illustrations by C. S. Reinhart. The Household Edition. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1872. 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. Vol. 4.

__________. "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 19 April 2021