Quilp by J. Clayton Clarke ("Kyd") for the watercolour series (1910): reproduced on John Player cigarette card no. 27: Ninety-two Characters from Dickens: The Old Curiosity Shop. 2 ½ inches high by 1 ¼ inches wide (6.3 cm high by 3.3 cm wide). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
QUILP (The Old Curiosity Shop)
A fiendish, malformed dwarf, who pervades the pages of “The Old Curiosity Shop” like a veritable thing of evil. There is nothing quite like Quilp in literature. Caliban, Quasimodo, Frankenstein's monster, are mere sucklings by comparison. He stands alone — a creation of devilish malignity, distorted spite, and foul, impish glee. [Verso of Card No. 27]
Even at the turn of the century, the popular taste still ran towards the earlier farce and character comedy of Dickens. The Kyd series includes a total of nine character cards from the 1840-41 cast of The Old Curiosity, or 18% of the total series: Dick Swiveller, no. 11; Mr. Chuckster, no. 12; the innocent and virtuous heroine, Nell, no. 22; the Punch-and-Judy man Short (Harris), no. 26; the villainous, lecherous Quilp, no. 27; the Brasses' quirky maid The Marchioness, no. 28; the oily attorney, Sampson Brass, no. 29; his termagant sister, the dictatorial Sally Brass, no. 30; and the morose itinerant puppeteer Tommy Codlin, no. 31.
Left: Phiz's portrait of the leering, devilish dwarf in Part 36 of Master Humphrey's Clock, 19 December 1840.
The evil, scheming, predatory Fred Quilp, with yellow fangs, is a lively synthesis of Shakespeare's Richard the Third, a hideous gargoyle, and a repulsive troll; in contrast to the gentle and innocent heroine, he is vain, brutal, violent, dynamic — and funny. Among Dickens's villains, he is the most grotesque and the menacing because, unlike such sordid, low-class antagonists as Bill Sikes, he is a strategic thinker with an infinite capacity for vindictiveness. In his unrelenting pursuit of the object of his perverted sexual obsession, Nell, he brings Grandfather Trent under his malignant influence by advancing the aged, inveterate gambler funds at exorbitant rates of interest. The chief butts of his fiendish practical jokes are his terrified wife, Betsy; his obsequious legal adviser, Sampson Brass; and his mother-in-law, Mrs. Jiniwin. Readers of the original serial derived considerable satisfaction by his drowning while trying to escape arrest at his Thames wharf, where he practises his trade as a ship-breaker. However, for the next sixty years Victorian readers on both sides of the Atlantic vilified him for his (ultimately fruitless) attempts to destroy Kit Nubbles and for his relentless pursuit (possibly sexually motivated) of Nell Trent and her grandfather, who Quilp is convinced has a hidden treasure. A more natural interpretation of Quilp's satanic, malformed features and enormous, phallic hat derived from Phiz's original illustrations such as Quilp's Grotesque Politeness (ch. LX) occurs in Felix Octavius Carr Darley's Dick Swiveller and Quilp, from The Old Curiosity Shop in his Character Sketches from Dickens (1888).
Previous Illustrators' Portraits of the Villainous Dwarf, Daniel Quilp (1840-1910)
Right: Brigden's 1978 redrafting of Kyd's original illustration, Quilp.
In the original, forty-part serial of Master Humphrey's Clock (25 April 1840 through 6 February 1841), fully eighteen of the major woodcuts are devoted in some way to the relentless Quilp, who therefore dominates the 72-plate sequence of The Old Curiosity Shop. Inn contrast, although she is at least nominally the protagonist and her figure provides considerable visual continuity in this lengthy program, Nell appears in seventeen illustrations in the first part of the story, and in just nine in the second half of the story (Parts 22 to 40), for a total of seventeen, that is, one less than Quilp. He is consistently the novel's chief antagonist, and his ignominious death on the Thames constitutes the final distribution of Nemesis in the denouement.
Introductory Illustrations of Daniel Quilp (1872-1910)
Left: Worth's version of the scene shows Quilp in a pushing match with his mother-in-law to exemplify their conflict over his wife: The old woman looked angrily at him, but retreated as he advanced, and falling back before him (1872). Right: . Right: Harry Furniss's study of the obnoxious antagonist: Quilp (1910)[Click on images to enlarge them.]
Left: Phiz's introductory illustration in the original serial: Quilp Surprising his Wife's Visitors; or, Quilp Interrupts at
Tea (Chapter IV: 23 May 1840). Right: Sol Eytinge, Jr.s's character study of the
novel's self-satisfied, diminutive villain, his much-put-upon wife, and her feisty
mother:
Relevant Illustrations from the 1861 and 1888 editions by Darley
- O. C. Darley's Dick Swiveller and Quilp from "The Old Curiosity Shop (1888)
- O. C. Darley's "Do I love thee, Nell," said he; "say do I love thee, Nell, or not?" (Frontispiece, Vol. I, 1861)
- O. C. Darley's The Fugitives (Frontispiece, Vol. II, 1861)
- O. C. Darley's "Marchioness, your health. You will excuse my wearing my hat . . ." from The Old Curiosity Shop, Vol. III (1861)
Other Artists' Illustrations for Dickens's The Old Curiosity Shop (1841-1924)
- George Cattermole (13 plates selected)
- Hablot Knight Browne (61 wood-engravings)
- Felix O. C. Darley (4 photogravure plates)
- Sol Eytinge, Jr. (8 wood engravings)
- Thomas Worth (47 wood engravings)
- W. H. C. Groome (9 lithographs)
- Harry Furniss (31 lithographs plus engraved title)
- Harold Copping (2 chromolithographs selected)
Scanned images and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned them and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography: Illustrated Editions of The Old Curiosity Shop
Brigden, C. A. T. “Quilp.” The Characters from Charles Dickens as depicted by Kyd. Rochester, Kent: John Hallewell, 1978. Page 29.
The Characters of Charles Dickens pourtrayed in a series of original watercolours by “Kyd.” London, Paris, and New York: Raphael Tuck & Sons, nd.
Dickens, Charles. The Old Curiosity Shop in Master Humphrey's Clock. Illustrated by Phiz, George Cattermole, Samuel Williams, and Daniel Maclise. 3 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1841; rpt., Bradbury and Evans, 1849.
_____. The Old Curiosity Shop. Frontispieces by Felix Octavius Carr Darley and Sir John Gilbert. The Household Edition. 55 vols. New York: Sheldon & Co., 1863. 4 vols.
_____. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. 14 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. XII.
_____. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by Thomas Worth. The Household Edition. New York: Harper & Bros., 1872. I.
_____. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by Charles Green. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1876. XII.
_____. The Old Curiosity Shop. With nineteen steel-plate illustrations from original wood-engravings by Phiz and George Cattermole. 2 vols. "New Illustrated Library Edition" of the Works of Charles Dickens. New York: Hurd and Houghton; Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1876. Vols. VI and VII.
_____. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by William H. C. Groome. The Collins' Clear-Type Edition. Glasgow & London: Collins, 1900.
_____. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book, 1910. V.
Hammerton, J. A. "XIII. The Old Curiosity Shop." The Dickens Picture-Book. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book, 1910. XVII, 170-211.
Vann, J. Don. "The Old Curiosity Shop in Master Humphrey's Clock, 25 April 1840-6 February 1841." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: MLA, 1985. 64-65.
Created 8 January 2015
Last updated 15 July 2024