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Newman Noggs
Harry Furniss
1910
13.4 x 5.5 cm, vignetted
Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby, The Charles Dickens Library Edition, facing IV, 224.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
"From a well-to-do family in the north of England, Noggs has fallen into drink and debt as is forced to take on menial work. Noggs befriends Nicholas and acts as his 'spy' into Ralph Nickleby's schemes, He warns Nicholas of the danger to Kate from Hawk (29). . . ." [Davis 271]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
"Was that half-past twelve, Noggs?" said Mr. Nickleby, in a sharp and grating voice.
"Not more than five-and-twenty minutes by the —" Noggs was going to add public-house clock, but recollecting himself, substituted ‘regular time.’
"My watch has stopped," said Mr. Nickleby; "I don’t know from what cause."
"Not wound up," said Noggs.
"Yes it is," said Mr. Nickleby.
"Over-wound then," rejoined Noggs.
"That can’t very well be," observed Mr. Nickleby.
"Must be," said Noggs.
"Well!" said Mr. Nickleby, putting the repeater back in his pocket; "perhaps it is."
Noggs gave a peculiar grunt, as was his custom at the end of all disputes with his master, to imply that he (Noggs) triumphed; and (as he rarely spoke to anybody unless somebody spoke to him) fell into a grim silence, and rubbed his hands slowly over each other: cracking the joints of his fingers, and squeezing them into all possible distortions. The incessant performance of this routine on every occasion, and the communication of a fixed and rigid look to his unaffected eye, so as to make it uniform with the other, and to render it impossible for anybody to determine where or at what he was looking, were two among the numerous peculiarities of Mr. Noggs, which struck an inexperienced observer at first sight. [Chapter II, "Of Mr. Ralph Nickleby, and his Establishments, and his Undertakings, and of a great Joint Stock Company of vast national Importance," 9-10]
Left: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s character study of the quirky clerk in the Diamond Edition: Newman Noggs (1867). Right: Fred Barnard's title-page vignette for the British Household Edition (1875).
Newman Noggs, Ralph Nickleby's cynical, long-suffering clerk is yet another iteration of the Comic Man of domestic melodrama. Prior to becoming the curmudgeonly Raph's clerk, Noggs had his own business. However, when he went bankrupt, he became a malcontented alcoholic, whose irrational mental ticks and ironic comments mask his sympathetic character and genuine insights into human nature. He becomes one of the picaresque hero's chief friends, the Sancho to Nicholas's Don Quixote. Kyd's version of Noggs in the Player's Cigarette Card series captures well the middle-aged alcoholic's rubicund nose, which adds humour to his benign expression. Although he may be styled Ralph Nickleby's "confidential clerk, who, having seen better days, has been reduced to penury through drink and injudicious speculation" (Bentley et al., 179), he is hardly a servile toady. His basic decency and love of fair play manifest themselves when he turns on his employer, and helps the Cheeryble brothers bring Ralph Nickleby to justice.
Although Furniss or his editor, J. A. Hammerton, has positioned this character study to face page 224 in Chapter 18, Dickens introduces the sarcastic functionary much earlier:
In obedience to this summons the clerk got off the high stool (to which he had communicated a high polish by countless gettings off and on), and presented himself in Mr. Nickleby’s room. He was a tall man of middle age, with two goggle eyes whereof one was a fixture, a rubicund nose, a cadaverous face, and a suit of clothes (if the term be allowable when they suited him not at all) much the worse for wear, very much too small, and placed upon such a short allowance of buttons that it was marvellous how he contrived to keep them on. [Chapter II, "Of Mr. Ralph Nickleby, and his Establishments, and his Undertakings, and of a great Joint Stock Company of vast national Importance," 9]
Left: Clayton J. Clarke's Player's Cigarette Card No. 46: Newman Noggs (1910). Centre: C. S. Reinhart's American Household Edition realisation of the same scene: Newman Noggs Opened the Door of the Deserted Mansion (1875). Centre: Phiz introduces Nickleby's sardonic clerk in Chapter 11: Newman Noggs Leaves the Ladies in the Empty House (June 1838).
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. 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 19 April 2021